izfufrt

WORKER EDUCATION AND SOCIAL TNQUIRY IN

AUSTRALIA 1913-1929

FIelen Bourke B .4. (lt{e1b . )

Thesis subnitted for tire Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of History, University of Adelaide, Februa.ry 1981 . \ry.8.4. SERIES I)conontic, Polilical, ancl Social Stuclies, tprilten in Auslraliø and Neu Zealand

Gener¿rl Etlitor - G. V. POIITUS, À{.Â., B.Litt,

No. l.-"Dcr no(:r(r(:!t u,,u ,rìãi." by F)lton Mayo, M.4., Iabb Professor of Psychology and Ethics in the University of Qucclsland. No.2.-"'I'hc Nr'ru Socir¿l Order," .,1 Study of I'ost Wur Rrcon- struction, by Meredith Atkinson, M.A,., latc Director of 'l'utorial Classcs, and Member <.¡f bhe Professorial Iìoard, [,I¡¡ivclsity of Melbourne. No. 3.-"I/istory of Trade Unioni¡ttt itt ¡lusl.ral.'t¡t," by ,I. T. Sukliffc, Scclctary to the Fedcral Government's llasic Wage Cornmission, 1920. No, 4.-"rlfo1'x attd Illodern Thought," by G, V. Portus, ll.A., B,l,itt.. Director of TuLorial Classes and Lecturer in llconorrir: Ilistoly in the Universily of Sytìney. No. õ.-r'ìIodtrn Iìco'ttotttic Hislorl¡" (with Special Refe¡cnce to Austrnlia), by llerbert Heaton, M,4., M.Comm., Litt.D,, late LecLule¡ in Economics and Director of Tutorisl Classos, University of Adelaide, No. 6.-"rl Nt'ut Prouince lor Law a¡td. Order," a Review, by its late Presidcnt, of the work of the Australian Court of Conciliation and Arbit¡ation for fourtcen years. By Henry Bournes Higgins, M.,{,, LL,B., Justice of the High Court of Australia, and President of the Court of Conciliation and Arbitration, 190?-1921. No. ?.-"S/¿¿dnus and Rcalíties ol Gooentnterll ," atr Introduc- tion to the study of the organisation of the adminis- trative agencies <¡f Government. By F. A. Bland, M.4., LL.B., Lecturel in Public Administration and Assista¡rt Directt¡r of Tutorial Cìaises, University of Sydncy. No. 8.-",,1 Lilt ol gociely," an Irttroduction to the study of Citizr:nshiþ. By-J. B. Condìiffe, lVI.A., Professor of Econonrics, Cantcrbury College (N.2.), with an lntro- duction by James Hight, M,4., Lìtt.D. No. 9.-"rl Study in. Social Econondcs: ßitter Vollet¡,"'t,y F. R. E. Mauldon, B.À. r Iæc- tul'cr in Eionolnics in tJre Universit e, and lalc l)istrict Tutor for the Univcrs in the Hunter Rivcr Valìey, N.S.W, 111

CONTENTS

Sumrnary 1V

Statement v1 Acknowledgments vii

Abbreviations 1X

Note on spelling X

Preface 1

Part One

Chapter 1 Transplanting a Movement 8 Chapter 2 Australian Labour and the New Social Order: the W.E.A. Diagnosis 29

Part Two

Chapter 3 Meredith Atkinson: Sociology in Australia 53 Chapter 4 Garnet Vere Portus: rrControversial Educationrr 94 Chapter 5 Francis Arnand Bland: The Science of Governrnent L26 Chapter 6 George Elton Mayo: Psychology and Society 161 Chapter 7 Douglas Berry Copland: Economics and the Social Sciences 196

Part Three

Herbert Heaton: Hobart, 1914-1916 Herbert Heaton: Adelaide, 1917-1925 Herbert Heaton: Economícs and Politics

Conclusion 518

Bib 1 io graphy 325 1V,

SUMMARY

One of the aims of this thesis has been to restore a forgotten chapter j-n the intellectual development of modern Australia. The period which it spans, 1913 to 1929, has as yet received little attention except frorn the historians of Australiars participation in the First Wor1d ltlar. It is a common but untested assumption that these were j-ntellectually ancl culturally sterile years but I would contend that this was a period of important transitions and some significant beginnings with regard to the developnent of social inqulry in Australia and to the introduction of the social sciences into Australian universities. This thesis argues that an inportant shape and stimulus was given to these advances by the operations of the Workersr Educational Association, a British novement translated to Australia from Britain in 1914. The intellectuals who were the key figures in the ltr.E.A.?s early phase - Meredith Atkinson, G.V.

Portus, F.A. B1and, Elton Mayo, D.B. Copland and Herbert Heaton - contributed to the education of Australia's social democracy in a way that was broader, and perhaps more encluring, than the imrnediate task of worker education. Their dual role in the university and in the community enabled them to develop their own social science fields within the academy and, outside its wa11s, to attempt the function of intellectuals in public 1ife, forning the public intelligence that they believed was crucial to true democracy. The business of worker education was central to this intellectual activity because it requíred the study of contenporary Australia, of her economic and political and industrial arrangements, if the worker was to understand hi-s position both as a wage-earner and a citizen. Thus the social sciences of economics, economic ìristory, political science, sociology and social psychology were the basic diet of worker education tutorial classes.

Between 1919 and 1926, the w.E.A. gïoup undertook, for Australian students, a remaTkable series of publications expllcitly labelled I'economic, social and political studiesrr. These and other publications are discussed as important events in the intellectual chronology of Australia. I have exanined the social theory and the ethical content of this work, explicating their critique of Australiars social order and political econorny. The w.E.A. ideology has been explored through the treatment of class conflict and the "industrial problem'r which presented the central challenge to worker education.

This thesis is organised around separate studies of the main figures in an attempt to situate their ideas and work in a sociological context and to illuminate the intellectual career and its interaction with the comrnunity. By the mid-twenties, this pioneering phase was over: half of these men had left Australia while tlie others remained to assist the professionalisation of the social sciences they had been j-nstrumental in founding. I have suggested that in all this endeavour during these years the maj or threads in the rnoder:n analyses of AustraLia were first drawn out under the inpetus of worker education of and those whose academic apprenticeship r{as served in its cause.

v]-1.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Since the nain archival materials for this thesis had been onl,v recently deposited in the libraries, there was a special effort needed from library staffs to make the collections accessible in a short time.

I am grateful to Mrs Maxine Clapp of the University of Minnesota

Archives, to Mr G.L. Fischer of the University of Sydney Archives, and to Mr Michael Piggott at the National Library of Australia for their assistance. Mrs Fay Richardson made available the IV.E.A. Files in the Department of Adult Education at the University of Sydney. I also received valuable help from those in charge of the Files and Records of the Universities, of Melbourne and Adetaide and from Mr Frank Strahan of the Melbourne University Archives. For their permission to use rnaterials, and for their interest, I would like to thank Mrs Marjorie Heaton and Brigadier and Mrs Joyce Tier. lt{r K.A. Gteen, archivist of the C.S.I.R.O., lr{r N.A. Parsloe of the Canterbury W.E.A., Mr L. Urwick and Professor F. Alexander responded generously to my inquiries.

Professor ll/.G.K. Duncan and Mr W.R. Crocker kindly discussed the

proj ect with me in its early days.

I am indebted to all those who have been involved in various stages of the supervision of this thesis: to Dr John Tregenza, to

Professor Austin Gough and, in particular, to Mr Hugh Stretton for his guidance and constructive criticisrn. I have had the benefit of the joint supervision provided by Dr F.B. Smith from the Australian National University and I must record my deep appreciation of the conscientious attention he has given my work.

My typist, Nlrs Judy Dutton, is owed special thanks for her co- operation and ski11 in the final preparation of the thesis. v111.

Mr James llain and Dr Robert Dare have both cheered me with their help and encouragement but it has been the support of my husband, paul Bourke, which has sustained this work. 1X

ABI]REVIATIONS

A.A.A.S. Australasian Association for the Advancement of science A.J.P.P. Ar.rstralasian .Journal of psychology and philosophy A.S.C.I. Advisory Council for Science and Industry

B.C.S. Board of Comnercial Studies, University of Adelaide B.H.A.S. Broken Hill Associated Smelters

C.E.M.R. Chemical Engineering and Mining Review

C.S. U. Christian SociaL Union

D.A.E. Department of Adult Education, Llniversity of Sydney I .A.M. S. Industrial Australian and Mining Standard I.P.R. Institute for Pacific Relations

L.S.R. M. Laura Spelrnan Rockefeller Menorial

L.S.E. London School of Economics M.U.A. Melbourne Universi"ty Archives r N. L.A. National Library of Australia

P .Q.S . Public Questions Society S.A.A. South Australian Archives, State Library S. U,A. Sydney University Archives U.D.C. Union of Democratic Control

W. E.A. Workersr Educational Association Y.Nf.C.A. Young Ments Christian Association X

Note: Dealing with a period in which the spelling convention was changing, I have chosen to retain ilLabour'r throughout.

I have also attempted to mininise capitalisation - as in

'rprofessor of economics, or ,chair of commercer - but it has proved difficult to make consistent decisions in this area. PREFACE 1

At the end of the lrirst world war, an expatïiate Australian

sociologist, Clarence Hunter Northcott, appraised Australia's develop-

ment in language that had by then become comrnonplace in the accounts

of the curious travellers, the fårcign students of denocracy and the

social investigators who came to explore the new society in the Antipodes. Northcott wrote,

The Australian colonies have long been designated I Iaboratorles of political experimentr, 'nurseries of practical and fearless idealism'; they have been considered as communities where a definite social principle has become the motive power behincl political activity and industrial aïïangenen¡rr. I rrsocial Terms such as laboratory", "political and social experimentn and 'lnursery of iclealism'r conveyed a complex of realities, observations

ancl impressions, suggesting that in the young Australian Commonwealth

a unique social order was being forged. Here was an energetic young people, a fortunate homogeneity of race, a happy clirnate and natural

wealth, a relative inmunity fron the con-servative influences of the distant o1d world of inhibiting traditions and the rigidities of class.

Here was an irnpressive record of social, legislation, ranging from the early-achieved eight-hour day to a matemity bonus, which attested to a consensus-j-deal of social welfare and earned for the average Australian a high standard of living. A party of the working-class had gained entry into politics and government and al1ied themselves with níddle-

class leaders who were inspired by the new liberalism to use the power of the state in the cause of social amelioration. The arbitration

system with its regulation of wages and its atternpt to supersede the

individual bargaining between employer and employee - Henry Bournes Higginsr tlnew province for 1aw and order" - was the object of particular

1c.H. Northcott, AustraLian soaiaL Deuelopment, (colunbia, New york, 1918) , p. 29. 2

study by British ancl Arncrican investigators.2 Here was a government

agency set up with judicial authority and legislative functions both as a nechanism for securing industrial peace and as an instrument for

the pursuit of social justice in its wage deliberations. It seemed,

in its first decade, a symbol of Australiars ilsocial democracyil.

It has been a conmonplace of our history that these experiments

in social democracy involved 1ittle theory and rnuch pragmatisn. I,.{étinrs felicitous epigram "socialisnìc sans doc.trinesrt has qui,te properly alerted scholars to the absence of explicit, conscious design in the

ear11' twentieth century phase of social democracy.3 But we have over-

looked the degree to which I'tétinrs perception was itself a commonplace

at the time, echoed and elaborated with great frequency between the turn of the centtrry and the late twenties. If there was a shortage of

doctrine informing the legislative achievement of the early Conmonwealth,

there h¡as no lack of people pointing that out. There is ample evidence that contemporary thinkers were concerned with the intellectual limits

of their soci.ety. Associated with the notion of Australiars non-

theoretical temper was the criticj-sm that academic expertise in new

fields such as the social sciences was not being used either to shape

or to cvaluate Australj-a?s social experinents. Social analysis and

criticism did not appear to be developed in Australia in any way commellsurate witl'r the noclernising forces in her social and political

arrangenents. The first professor of economics in Australia, R.F.

Irvine, in 1914 corunented on this anomalous gap between practice and theory,

2See Victor S. Clark, TLte Laboun l,Iouement in Austz,alia, (New york, 1906) i "As Others See Ustt, Repont of the Amey"Lcan Tz,ade Conrntssion on rndustv'i,al condLtions ¿n AustraLa,sia, r9r4; Ay,bitration and Wage- Fiætng ín AustraLia, National rndustrial conference Board, Research Report No. 10, (Boston, Mass.), 1918. 34. Métin, Le Social'Lsme sans Doetrines @aris,1910). .)a

nothing strikes visiting econornists and sociologists so much as the meagreness of investigation and ðriticis¡n by Australians of their own social evolution.a

In the same year, F.W. Eggleston told the British Association Meeting in Sydney, Australia has been referred to as a laboratory of social experiment. But it has never been this consciously. Australian democracy has never recognised a science which has formulated exact laws dealing with human wealth and welfare, and which linits the divine right of democracy to achieve its will. It has never consulted professors of economics as to the possible results of it-s decrees, nor, has it carefully invest_ igated and tabulated the results as to guide its future action.5

The curricula of the universities sti1l followed the English and

Scottish models of the nineteenth century. Very little attention was given to the studies associated with the general concept of a ,,science of society": economics, economic history, politicar science, public administration, social and applied psychology, anthropology and sociology. There was, at the encl of war, only one chair in any of these fields which was at the head of a separate discipline - Irviners chair in economics at the university of sydney. Ilistory, philosophy and 1aw were sti1l the dominant humanities into which was subsumed any inquiry lnto social, political or economic behaviour, the only exception being the development of educatlon as an autononous field.

At the 1912 neeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of science, Francis Anderson, professor of logic and mental philosophy at Sydney, refetred to this failure to cultivate the social sciences,

1o.t. Irvine, The Place of the SoaLaL Scíenees ín a Modern tJníuersity, _(Sydney, 1914), p. 8. tf.-t' rrThe Eggleston, Australian Democracy and its Economic problernsn, address reprinted in The Economic JourmaL, vol. 2s, 19rs, p. s47. 4

asking

Is this island continent, set fa-r apart in southern seas, to be also intellectually remote, as far as its universiti.es are concerned . . . ?6

The point was made again by lv. Harrison Moore, professor of law at the university of Melbourne, in 1916, in a submission for funds to the Minister for Education, It has been a standing reproach to the tJniversities of Australia that in a country that is recognised as the greatest laboratory of economic experiment in the world, they have done so little to influence these experinents or to test these results.T

For these men, the terrns r'laboratory" and rtexperiment' were not simply random metaphors drawn from the realm of the pure sciences to illustrate Australia's innovative progïess. Their use signified the desire of intelligent Australians to participate in the intellectual

movements being established and consolidated in Europe, Britain and North America. Those who urged the "scj-entific?r evaluation and assess- ment integral to the laboratory rnethod did believe i-t possible to

achieve the accuracy, objectivity and predictability att'ributed to the physical sciences in the analysis and nanip-ulation of social data.

A prestige and a faith attached in this period to the new social sciences

as they lvere being developed, professionalised and specialised in the nort-hern hemisphere. It seemed possible that a rational u'rderstanding of society's processes would provide a new efficiency. With the benefit of social science training, new experts could plan - to control social

6F. Anderson, 'rsociology in Australia: a Plea for its Teachingr? address to Au-stralasian Association for the Advancement of Science, 1912, reprinted in SociaL Honizons, July 1943, p. 20. 7W. Harrison Moore, memorandum to the Minister for Education in Victoria, University of Melbourne Registry Records, File 1916/547. 5.

¿Ìnd econonic forces and so to dissolve the edges of social conflict. The good society of the future could be constructed on the guidelines of enpirically-tested fact, on a more reliable basis than the impressionistic or ethical principles of earlier social thought.

Related to this specific plea for the introduction of the social sciences into Australian universities was the rnore general complaint that the business of intellectuals engaging in the criticism of their society, informing the public, debating and popularising issues, was missing in Australia. Lord Bryce formd less learned men in government and public affairs than he was accustomed to identify in older societies and many have echoed him since in lamenting both the poverty of 'discussion on social and political matters and the lack of organs for contemporary debate - responsible journals, a vigourous press and associations promoting one cause or another.S trlt is a disgrace?l wrote J.B. Brigden, professor of economics at the University of Tasnania, in the mid-twenties, "that we have not one independent weekly journal devoted to serious literature on social and intellectual questions'r.9 P.D. Phi11ips, a Melbourne lawyer, spoke of

a crying need in the Australian cornmunity for a development of that class vaguely but sufficiently described as rpublicistsr which does so much to clarify and assist social discussion in the older countries of the world. Such men as Lord Cecil, Sir Josiah Stamp, Mr Sidney Webb or Dr Nicholas Murray Butler - to take representations of four very diverse soci-al stand-points - illustrate the fine flowering of a well-nourished soi1. The resources of Australia are sti11 undeveloped in this sphere as in more material and mundane aspects. I o

BJames Bryce, Moderm Democz,acies, vol. 11, (London, I92L), pp. 27L-272. 9.1 . g . Bri gden, Souz'ces of Opinion (Hobart, 1927), p. 11. loP.D. Phillips and G.L. wood (ed), The Peopling of Austy,aLia, [4e1bourne, ls28) p. 4. 6

Phillips offered these remarks in 1928, in the editorial preface to

The PeopLing of Austv,alia,published by the new Victorian Branch of tìre Institute for Pacific Relations. At the end of 1912, one of his examples of that missing class, Sidney Webb, had also been searching out men like hinself in Australia who might write for his new sixpenny weekly, the Neu Statesman. He asked for advice from Henry Bournes

Higgins on potential contributors :

It is part of our object to bring the thinking men of the different parts of the Empire into closer touch with each other. We want to make a feature of regular articles frorn Australia (and elsewhere) - sãy, six or twelve a year - dealing with wise critical appreciati-on, with intellectual, social economic and political movements, or streams of tendency in Australia, rather than merely cricket or election results, which are all that England gets at present. I 1 This thesis is a study of the one group during this period which self- consciously set itself the task which ü/ebb outlined. They were

I'thinking men'r who did aspire to the role of critic and publicist, as Phillips defined it. They also articulated the need for the rrstreams of tendency in Australia" to be shaped by the knowledge and methodology of the modern social sciences. Their vehicle was not a single periodical such as the Neu Statesman, nor a new institution such as the London School of Economics, nor a political party. Their institutional framework was a dual one formed in an alliance between the uriversities and a transplanted British movement, the Workersr Educational Association. The study is organised around the principal figures on the university side of the alliance: Meredith Atkinson,

Herbert Heaton, Garnet Vere Portus, Francis Armand Bland, George Elton

llsidney Webb to Henry Bournes Higgins, 2 November 1912. H.B. Higgins Papers, MS 1057 /20'J,, National Library of Australia. 7

Mayo and Douglas Berry copland. rt spans the years between 1912 and

1929: from the introduction of the lV.ll.A. into Australia to the eve of the Depression by which time the initial dynanic impulses of the alliance were well played out. By then, half of this group had left Australia and the others rernained to devote their energies to the professionalisation within the universities and outside then of the social sciences which they had been instrurnental in establishing in Australia. PART ONE

CHAPTER 1, Tronsplonting a llovement The Workers' Educational Association was forned in England in 1903, the brain-child of ltfr Albert Mansbridge. Born in 1876, the son of a

Gloucester carpenter, Mansbridge left school at the age of fourteen after a board school and a granmar school education but he ardently attended adult education classes at Toynbee Ha11 and at University Extension lectures. His passion for learning was natched by a dedic- ation to religion: the gospel of education and the gospel of Christian- ity were both integrated into the vision that created the l1I.E.A. A lay preacher in the Church of England he taught Sunday schools with his wife, formed a study circle in Christian Economics, and counted among his friends evangelical Christian Socialist clerics such as Charles Gore, Canon Barnett and Willian Temple. To his working-class origins and his religious inpulses must be added the influence of the Co-operative rnovernent. Its principles were revered in his upbringing and in 1896 he entered its service as a clerk in the Co-operative Wholesale Societyrs warehouse in lVhitechapel. I

Co-operation was much more than an'econonic benefits association to its adherents. One of its veterans, George Jacob Holyoake, expressed its more profound aspirations thus - f'Co-operation creates a new person, a new character, and a new policy".2 Consurner arrangements alone could not achieve such transformations in rnen so that fron its inception, in

Orvenite ideas in the 1830 rs and the experirnent of the Rochdale Pioneers in the 1840's, the movernent had placed great faith in the power of lMary Stocks , Ihe Woy,kenst EducationaL Associatíon. Ihe Firsl; Fifty Ieans, (London 1953) Chapter 2. See also l4ansbridge's autobiography The Trodden Path, (London 1940). 2Albert Mansbridge, An Aduentuy'e in trfoy,king-CLass Educal;ion Being the St;ory of the llorkers' EducationaL Association 7903-7915, (London 1920), p. 12. 9 knowledge. It provided self-improvement opportunities to the workers in adult education classes, study groups, correspondence courses, sunmer schools and local libraries and, by the end of the nineteenth century, had begun to utilise the initiatives towards extra-mura1 education now coming fron the universities. To the numerous voluntary bodies - from the Mutual Improvernent Societies to the Trade Union movenent - attempting to satisfy the demand for worker education from below, there was added the efforts of men like F.D. Maurice and his colleagues at the Working Menrs College, of the founclers of university settlements and of the pioneers at Ruskin College, Oxford. Led by

Cambridge University, most of the universities l-rad, by 1900, involved themselves in Extension progranmes whose organisation was the respons- ibility of the university.3

Believing that all this effort needed some co-ordination, Mansbridge

conceived of an association which might bind these elements into a

tight educationaL alliance. Trade Unionisrn, the Co-operative movement and the University Extension activities could be woven into a 'rtriple cord, which would foster education among the workers not solely for

livelihood but as the basis for the Christian life which he deemed

essential to a true democracy. In his own rhetoric, he described the

new l{orkers I Educational Association : as an organisation for education it stands unique, because it has united for the purposes of their mutual development Labour and Scholarship in and through their respective associations of Trade Unions and Universities, and because of this unity, so secured, the power of the spirit of wisdom has been increased in the affairs of men, and the building of ?Jerusalem in Englandrs green and pleasant landr has become at least a nearer

3ftid., chapter I ; also J . F. C. Harrison, Lear+ting and L'Luing 1790-1960 . A Study in the Histozg of the AduLt Education Mouement, (London 1963) and T. Ke1Iy, A Histony of AduLt Education in Greal; Br"itain, (London rs62) . 10.

prospect.4

Suffusing the whote concept was the Christian Socialist evangelism X which spoke of the new life accompanying new knowledge, of education 'rsaturated u/ith the ideal of social servicert, of the informed judgement which meant inward illunination, and of the moral citizenship which was its end. The diversion of working class forces into the 'rrightly oídered life, through the channels of reason and enlightenment was a conserr¡ative measure, or at the most, one allowing only gradualist, peaceful change wrought by the reforming poweï of education. Mansbridge claimed no less when he explained his idea in 190i: the deep draughts of knowledge drunk by those within the currents of correct thought will provide that power and strength which, in spite of stressful and baneful days, will divert the stïong movements of the people from the narrow paths of imnediate interests to the broad way of that rightly ordered social life of which only glimpses have yet been seen even by the greatest of the worldts seers.5

In 1903, the first committee of the Workers' Educational Associa- tion included representatives fron the trade unions, the Co-operative movement and the universities. rt was funded by affiliations from working-class societies of all kinds and by grants fron the Board of

Education and the Local Education Authorities, made possible by the

Education Act of 1902. Aid and encouragement also carne from sidney

Ball at st John's college, A.L. snith at Bal1io1 and Alfred Zimmern and the Fellows of New College. At the first national conference of the Association, held at oxford in 1905, william Temple, an oxford don aA. Mansbridge, An Aduenture in Working-CLass Educati-on, op. cit., Preface. 54. Irtansbridge, "Co-operation, Trade Unionisn and Uníversity Extensionrr reprinted from the Uniuersity Eætensíon Jou.z.naL, 1903 in The Kingdom of the Mind. Essays and Addv.esses 1903-37 of ALbev,t Mansbridge, (London 1944) p. 7. 11. dcstined to follow hi-s fathcr to the hierarchy of the Church, was introduced to the movement and became its first president, The earliest branches of the }V.E.A. were formed in 1904 and 1905 at Reading, Derby, Ilford and Rochdale. Within a short tirne, lecture-s were being organised for the workers in conjunction with universities all over England but it was at Rochdale that the new dírections of the l\r.E.A. and its distinctive educational features began to emerge. Impressed by the response of the Rochdale students, Mansbridge was led to consider the possibility of an educational scheme which could offer rnore than the conventional extensì-on programmes. His plan was for a more intensive, more systematic course of study which would approxinate to university standards. He asked. the Rochdale students if they would be willing to pledge themselves to regular attendance at classes on a particular -subject for two years and to the writing of regular essays. In return, he promised "the best tutor in Englandrrand the virtual provision of university eclucation. The experinent began when R.H. Tawney, then a lecturer in economics at Glasgow, agreed to travel down to Rochdale each week-end to conduct tJre classes. At Longton, E.S. Cartwright duplicated the venture and a new pedagogical method was born - the university tutori.al c1ass.6

During the summer of 1907, a conference was held at Oxford on rfwhat oxford can do for lvorking People". Dr. charles Gore presided over the discussion during which the university was asked to enter into a joint body with the lv.E.A. to organise further tutorial classes. A joint comrnittee composed of seven representatives from each drew up a report entitled ttOxford and Working-class Educationfr and as a result

64. N{ansbridge, An Aduenture in lionkinq-CLa.ss Educafion, Chapters IIr and IV. t2 a pernanent Joint Committee for Tutorial Classes was established in

1908 under the university?s Extension delegacy. The Oxford example was quickly followed by other universities and by 1914 almost every British university was engaged in the organisation of tutorial classes with the

W.E.A.7

It was an essential principle in l{ansbridgets concept of worker education that the initiative must 1ie with the students. They were the ones to determine how, whI, what and when they wished to study. This was both a theory about the nature of learning - that it should not be inposed but sought - and an expression of the voluntarist democracy which Mansbridge and his disciples believed in. The demand for a class in a particular subject was to come from the workers in a particular place ; it was the responsibility of the Joint Conmittee to appoint the tutor ancl organise the class. Classes were also to be inspected by the Board of Education; Alfred Zinrnern and J. Dover WiIson wcrc appointed in this capacity. Mansbridge set down the constitution for the tutorial class: it rvas to consist of no more than thirty students who would take a pledge to attend regularly two-hour classes over thr:ee years. Twelve essays were to be written each year while the course was to cornbine a lecture presentation, which the students were to be free to interrupt with questions, and then a discussion period.

The classes were to be governed by the students thenselves: in the rhetoric of the h/.E.4. "each student was held to be a teacher and each teacher held to be a studentrt. The tmiversity was therefore not the paternalistic giver of education but a co-operator in a joint endeavour

- ?tnothing must be done for the workers but that which they themselves want, which they reach out to ...rt8 The emphasis in the subjects taught

SMansbridge, tlniuey,sity TutoniaL Classes, op. dt., p. 14 13.

fel1 heavily on political and social subjects. Although there were classes in literature and the natural sciences, the majority of students wanted classes in economics, industrial history or citizenship and these

accounted for more than half the classes held in 1913.9

This, then, was the English movement that was transplanted to

Australia on the eve of the first worLd war. It had deep roots in a network of Local associations and working-class movements in both rural and urban Britain in the nj-neteenth century, it was assisted by the

social conscience of more progressive nembers of the Church of England and it employed a whole generation of liberal, socially-minded, oxford scholars. *****

A visit to Australia by William Temple, in 1910, in connection with the Student Christian Federation, first brought the trV.E.A. to public attention here. Temple lectured on ttEducation and Dernocracyrf

expounding the ideals of the new association.l0 The universities of Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide were also subscribers to the British

W.E.A. and, in accordance with their interest in the venture, an itern on university tutorial classes was placed on the agenda of the Congress of the Universities of the Empi:re which net in London in I9I2. Anong Australia's representatives were H. Darnley Naylor, the

professor of classics at the University of Adelaide, and Dr James

Barrett, a Melbourne physician, who was a member of the council of the University of Melbourne and later Chancellor of the University. Barrett

gKeIIy, op. cit., p. 254. 1owi1lian Tenple, f'Education and Denocracy". Report in Aduertiser 28 JuLy 1910. 14. was a supporter of an eclectic array of progressive causes and was deeply impressed when he heard Mansbridge address the Congress. I I His interest was further stimulated when he was invited to Oxford by A.L. Smith, a keen pronotor of the W.E.A. As a result. Barrett agreed to fund a tour,of Australia by Mansbridge and his wife in 1913. A.L.

Smith did much to assist the tour by calling on his many contacts j-n

Australia who were old Oxford friends or pupi1s.12 Mansbridge embarked upon a missionary expedition from Perth to Brisbane, by way of all the major cities and industrial areas like Kalgoorlie and Broken Hill. In the manner of Pauline epistles, he Ì4rrote back to his followers in England of the warm responses he rnet frorn university men, politicians, trade unionists and workers. I 3 There were already harbingeïs of the

English novement in Australia who had belonged to the W.E.A. and the

Co-operative movement back home: L.T. Leathley from Leeds \^/as eager to organise the l\r.E.A. in Victoria while David Stewart, a Scottish carpenter, worked tirelessly in N.S.W. to win the trade unions and the universities to the lìew experiment.l4 The urgency of educating the new democracy ancl the hope of alleviating social tension were themes which struck responsive chords in politicians such as Tom Ryan in South

Australia and A. C. Carmi chae 1 , L'linis ter for Education in N . S .W. , whi le officials of the Departments of Public Instruction - Frank Tate, John lISee J.W. Barrett, The '|\sin IdeaLs, (l4elbourne 1918). 12-4. L. Smith arranged lvlansbridge's visit to the University of Queens 1and, as reported in Brisbane Cour+er,, ll May 1915. G.C. Henderson was also a pupil of A.L. Smith at Ballio1. See D. Whitelock, The Great Traditíon: A \lisbong of AduLt Edueatíon in AustraLia, (Queensland 1974), Chapter 6. l3Mansbridgers reports on his tour are printed ín Highuay, June to October 1913. lal.T, Leathley "The Beglnnings of the W.E.A. in Victoriail in AustraLion JounnnL of Adult Educabion, Vol. 3, no. 1, July 1963, pp. 32-37, and E.M. Higgins, Dauid Steuay,t and the W.E.A., W.E.A., Sydney, (n.d.; c. 195 8) . 15

support in cach Story ancl , in particular, l)etcr Boar<] - gavc positivc state. In the churches, Ivlansbridge also found encouragernent: the Bishop of Brisbane invited the Mansbridges to stay with him and, in Sydney,BishopL.B.Radfordembracedthecausebecomingoneofthe first tutors for the W.E.A. t5 Branches of the Association \¡/e'e forrned in cities, suburbs and nining towns. In 1914 the movement in N'S'w' from was showing healthy growth as the number of affiliations doubled bodies which included the Labour Council, the Trades Hal1 Association' thirty-one trade unions, the Feminist Club, the Association for the

Advancernent of the B1ind, the university Evening studentsr Association, 16 the Student Christian Movement and the Balmain Co-operative Society' only in western Australia, despite the interest of some like E'0'Gshann, did the l^/.E.A. and its tutorial class movement take no root.

To persuade the universities to alty themselves with the l¡J.E'A' in providing tutorial classes, guarantees weÎe needed that the state to fund such a new developnent' Elovernments would give additional grants By the tirne Mansbridge left Australia at the end of 191 3 such assurances were forthconing to the university of Sy

15see Paul Radford, A SchoLa:r'in a Neu Land: Leuis Bostock Radfond' (Flinders University Relations Unit 1979) ' 16E.M. Higgins, op. cit., P. 25. i6.

Herbert Heaton, as its Director in 1914, and in the University of lvtelbourne, the ef forts of Harrison Moore, F.W. Eggleston, Barrett and

Nl.M. Phillips were rewarded in 1917 when the government made funds available. Meredith Atkinson went to Melbourne to take up this position and was succeeded at Sydney by G.V. Portus and his Assistant- Director, F.A. B1and. l{hen the South Australian government fulfiIled its pr:omise of a grant in 1917, Herbert l-leaton transferred to Adelaide and his position in Hobart was given to Douglas Berry Copland, who had been active in the infant W.E.A. in New Zealand. In Queensland, the institutional framework for the conduct of tutorial classes remained somewhat looser than in the other states until 1921 when the government agreed to fund a fu1l-tine Director, B.H. Mole'sworth. Before I92I, the work was kept going by the volunteer efforts of A.C.V. Melbourne,

George Elton Mayo, Henry Alcock and T.C. lVitherby. They taught the classes and served on a University Conmittee of lvlanagement which olganised them.

The suitability of an English movement like the I1l.E.A. and its r?supreme activity", the tutorial class, to a new country like Australia has been'the subject of some debate among historians of the movement.

It represents an instance of a common problem in Australian cultural and intellectual history, that of the dialectic between the derivative and the indigenous. Fred Alexander has argued that the marriage of university - directed tutorial classes and a ?'proselytising associationrl organised by the workers was not adaptable to rural Australia and that it macle little impact on the urban centres or on the industrial trade union movernent. Alexander contends that imposed British ideas created only a r?passive recreational activity of the middle classes" whereas the North American progranmes, as developed, for exarnple, by the 17.

university of wi-sconsin Extension Department, might have proved nore viable and effective in Austr¿r1ia.l7 other writers, Derek Whitelock

and llric lvilliams, counter that the IV.E.A. scheme was a positive step

forwarcl in the face of a declining university extension movement which was itself copied fron the British rmiversities in the 1996rr.IB The extra-mura1 lecttrres given under the auspices of the universities j-n city and country centrcs Jrad attracted micìdle-c1ass audiences to

evenings out 1ìstening to an entertaining talk like that by George rtrypical ArnoId woocl on Historical characters, or by G.c. Ilenderson rrrhe on Exploits of sir Ftancis Draker'. Darnley Naylor enjoyed great popularity in the South-East of South Australia on "Everyday Life in Ancient Romerf. As Henderson put it,

the Extension movenent differs fron university education in that the lecturer does not expect people to give that attention to the subject as they,ortd ao ir tney were studying at a university proper. All the recturer may hope is to give results in as attractive a manneï as possible of that research and study that he himself h¡rs entered into . 19 'I'he intcrltiotrs of thc lv.li.A. lveïe exprc-ssly the oppositc but loftiness of intentjons is seldon sufficient guarantee of success. williams does show, however, the comparatì.ve neglect of contemporary issues, of

political altd social content, in the extension couïses offered by the

17F. rrAdult Alexancler, Education in Australia" (lvlelbourne 1959) and "sydney university and the trv.8.A., 1913-1grr , Austy,alian QuantnrLg, Decenber 1955, pp. 34-s6. other authors on the beginning of the l^l.E.A. in Australia inclucle A. l^Jcsson , Fonnal AcjuLl r;ducãtion in victoria 1890-1950 (It.Ed. 'Ihcsis university of Melbourne 1971), !V.G. walker, 'rsydney university and the iv.E.A. - A lìeassessnrentrl Australian f'flre QuarterLu, September 1956, pp. 93-104 and Vernor., Cr""] Beg,inning-s of the rv.E.A. in Queeniiand", Austnaliatt Journa.L of AduL-t Education, vo1. 9, no. 2. v. crew, aií:Liogr.aphu of Aust'aLLan AduLt Educ:ation, igss-6s (Narional Library or Ruitrãtia,- 196g) lists other references. IBo. whitelock , op. cit.; Eric l\rilliarns , The Foundations of Adult Educa.tl'on in Austz.alia: 1886-1916 (8.A. Hons. thesis, university of Adelaide, 1968). 19G.c. Henderson, interview to west Austt,aLían, May 1906, quoted in Wi llians , op. dt., p. II4. 18. various universities from 1890. The lectures were concentrated on cultural subjects and on the natural sciences such as botany ancl biology' The W.E.A. classes shifted that basic diet to social science areas and in the history of intellectual developnent in Australia - as , distinct frorn the history of worker educatj-on - this was an inportant and significant shift which this thesis sets out to exarnine.

There is no cloubt that the IV.E.A. fell far short of its,idealistic þ j-n aims Australia as it did also in Britain. The catastrophe of war interrupted its early and quite promising development, the internal divisions within working-class movements in a1l countries brought it under attack from radical socialists and its associations with the bourgeois universities alienated many of the proletari-at. On the other hand, the chance to explore subjects and contenporary issues not studied in university curricula attracted middle-class teachers, civil servants and others. The leading protagonists of the }\/.E.A. had no i11usj-ons that they were reaching their projectecl clientele. Leathley acknowledged that there blas never rnuch response from organised labour in victoria.20 Heaton described his c1a-s-ses as furl of scotch or Lancashire accents, of young men back from the war but not persistent in their efforts to know more, and lots of women taking diligent notes.2t The English element was strong from the first. Bland reported to

Atkinson about his classes in N.S.ltl. in 1915:

Even here the English element is represented more strongly than the native Australj-ans. It is also the case at tlurstville. It will be interesting to see

??t. Leathley, op. cit., pp. 36-37. "H. Heaton, "Personalitjes 1913-I922tt, Austz'aLian Highway, Vol. 5 no. 8, October 1923, 19.

later how rnuch the movement is owing its support to English people.22

Again, in 1919, Bland admitted to Grahan lvallas, his teacher at the L.S.E.,

It is doubtful whether we are getting down to even the average worker, rather do we attract the nore enlight- ened Trade Unionists and a good sprinkling of middle- class people. But from ny experience of the novement in England, I don't think r^/e are singular in that respect , 2 3

Enthusiastic support cane fron members of the co-operative society, but this was a case of the enigrant carrying his o1d links with him to a new land. At the Adelaide abattoirs or the mines of Broken Hill, the Australian trade unionist listened only fitfully. The report of the W.E.A. in Australia to the World Association for Adult Education rn 1924 conceded its failuïe to shatter the apathy of the average Australian, whose material comfort made him part of a "big, nentally- sleeping mass?rto whom few causes had any appeal. The tV.E.A. intellectuals, however, consoled themselve-s that they did minister to the alive, mentally-aIert minority whose minds could be trained to "scientific ntethods of thoughtrr and who could carefully examine Australian develop- ment and problens in the light of their grasp of the main strands of European and American life arrd thought:

In a new country affairs move rapidly. It is inportant that they should move in the right way. And in so far as the W.E.A. helps them to move in that direction, it is playing a useful part in the building up of the nati on . 24

22F-A. Bland to M. Atkinson, 25 September 191s, Bland papers, sydney llnivc rs ity Arcl'rives . Bland to G. wallas, 19 papers, 24"Adult'rF. september 1919. B1and s.u.A. Education in AustraLià,, worLd. Assocíation fqy aaitt Ed,,ucation BulLetin, no. xx, May 1924, pp. 26-27. The anonymous author is either Heaton or Portus. 20.

'fhe Mansbridge drcanl of thc university standard to be gained through essay writing and regular attendance was no doubt also diluted by Austr:rlian conditions. Portus hacl difficulty finding enough first- class graduates to take classes in the social sciences across the rural stretches of N.S.W. and with typical pragmatism he listed courses with general titles such as 'rSociaI Questionsrr in which the available tutors ni-ght use their training and talents with the utmost versatility.25 The following letter gives a rare insight into the actualities of worker education from the consumerrs point of view. It is the apology of an ltj-nerant raillay worker in N.S.ll1. for not keeping to his essay pledge:

c/o Tinekeeper Railway Works Glenreagh, Sth Grafton, Feb. 13. 1915 Professor M. Atkinson,

Dear Sir, I have been guilty of almost unforgiveable callousness in not answering your letter and acknowledging the receipt of book and panphlet before nor¡/. T will explain the circumstances and you can judge if rny crime is as black as it would first appear. Unfortunately I suffer from short- sightedness 'i n a very severe form. I hacl a pair of glasses l)ut they clissappearecl (sic) rather mysteriously. J was recommended to a local sightester but he proved a blank. Mssr Barraclough visited Grafton on the 20th Jan. I cal1ed on him and received sui.table spectacles. Following railway construction work is not the rnost pleasant way of earning a livelihood. l{orking in cuttings 10, lS, 20 feet j.n depth and over, a man is exposed to the glare of the sun, with very little chance of benefitting by a breeze. It is very irksome for the four hottest ûronths of the year. Shifting camp and depending for delivery of mail on the local Postmaster in some of those smal1 bush towns, he is generally storekeeper or some other busj-ness man, letters are sometirnes days overdue. I am sorry for having to trouble with so much

25G.V. Portus , HappA Highuays, Chapter XVI. E.M. tli ggins cliscusses this point in his biography of David Stewart, op. c'Lt. , p 44. 21.

tìctai 1, but I clo so with thc intention of cxplzrining awiry what would appcar to be uttcr ncglcct I will try to write a faiÌ'essay, as your letter of the lst Dec aclvises, on the first two chapters of Inclustrai I (sic) English Flistory, this book is very interesting in different ways. It is easy to give a brief sketch of the first chapter, the second I find more difficult. I have received no copy of The Highway for sonetime, I rernain Yrs sincerely M. Fo1ey.26

There may have been many a worker like M. Foley to whom the industrial history of England remained a nystery otf there may have been many who benefited in immeasurab}e ways fron their encounters with the W.E.A.

I have not sought either to ask or to answer the question of how many workers the university apostles reached, whether or not they were listening, and what difference it made to their lives if they were. The legacy of the W.E.A. j.s not sole1y to be determined in strict pedagogical results nor in the moral elevation of the labouring classes, assuming that could be guaged. This thesis argues that l¡lansbridgets transplant,ed movernent dicl contribute to educating the clemocracy but in a much broacler sense. It was, in fact., a sociological agency for the nourishing and operation of knowledge and intellectual endeavour in a context which was intellectually deprived outslde its r.uriversities. tVithin them, it assisted the introduction of areas of learning which the universities had been slow to adopt. The I4l.E.A. provided a group of young intellectuals with their first footing in academic life and through its platforms and publications it gave them a public role and

26M. Foley to M. Atkinson, 13 February 1915 . Blancl Papers, S.U.A 22

a forum for their social theory and criticisn. The funding which

supported them, however insufficient, did enable the universities to employ these men and so, indirectly, enabled the basi-c developnent of

the social sciences to which all of them \^/ere committecl . Atkinson and

his successor J.A. Gunn taught the only sociology courses that the University of Melbouïne has condoned; Heaton laid the foundations for economics at Adelaide as Copland did in Melbourne; Mayo did pioneering

work in applied psychology and industrial sociology in Brisbane; Bland

was the father of public administration in Sydney and Portus developed both economic history and political science. These contributions

are explored in the successive chapters of this work.

The dual roles of the lV.E.A. intellectuals as university teachers on the one hand and educators of the public on the other were fused in

their employment and their affiliation with the !V.E.A. comnitted as they were to confront the worker in his contemporary situation, they had to engage in teaching relevant to the industrial order and to the

society which conditioned it. The challenge of class conflict was, therefore, central to their own arena, forcing them to take account of

the inrplications of industrial capitalisrn. They spent much of their

energies scrutinising alternatives for social reconstmction and

popularising the debat'es which pre-occupied nodern intellectuals in the post-urar wor1d. The next chapter is devoted to a general analysis of the thinking of this group on the problem of labour ancl the new social order. It does not focus purely on the main cast of characters but

includes others ,who, like Eggleston and Irvine, were much involved in the l\r.E.A. and were part of its catchment of colcerned "thinking nenr?. 23.

An important function and achievement of all these figures was

to lessen the tyranny of intellectual distance between Australia and the world. Although they were acutely concerned to evaluate the

distinctiveness of Australian society, they tended to see it as a variant of western democracy, sharing to some extent the problens

common to every western society after the War. They urged awareness of thc n¿rturc ancl vitrbility of parliamentary denocracy, of the relation

of the individual to goveïnment, of the need to educate the emergent I'herdrr society dangerously susceptible to opinion fornation by demagogue and press. Theydi-dnot, on the whore, pursue the Australian

identity in mythic, cultural or nationali-stic terms because they reach*rl

out to an internationalist mentality, eviclenced in their menbership

of Round Table groups and,League of Nations societies, or later on, the Institute for Pacific Relations.

A basic difficulty to be surmounted in the w.E.A. progïammes was the lack of 'rauthoritative Australian books on econonic, social and political problemsr'. At first, it was necessary to rely on cheap English publications. Hundreds of copies of editions like Brailsfordrs

War of Steel and C,oLd anð, G.D.H. Cole,s The Woz,Ld of Labotæ were distributed through a book service. rt was then arranged that rawney and Zimnern wourd despatch every month a parcel of the latest books on sociology, economic history, political science, psychology and literature in an attempt to build up a supply of rnaterial of this kind which would be better than that held by the 1ocal book shops in sydney.27 At the first Federal council of all state directors and

2-TAusty,aLian Highaay, Vo1. 1, no. 9, November 1919, p. 3. Report on ?'The Movementfrand W.E.A. book service. 24. secretar:i es of the W.E.A. jn 1918, it wa.s rcsolved to ernbark upon the publication of an Australian W.E.A. series. As Portus explained the enterprise it was not solely confined to the syllabus needs of particular tutori-a1 classes:

Anong the professors, lecturers, and tutors, who have so readily assisted the tutorial class movement, some had collected valuable material bearing on these problems. Through the Federal Council it was thought possible to assemble some of this material for publication in a series of monographs intended for the use of students in tutorial classes and elsewhere. 'lhus has the W.E.A. Series of publications been founded, and it is hoped that its utility will extend beyond the inmediate needs of mernbers of the W.E.A. to the growing-nurnber of students of social problems in AustraIia.2B

Portus went on to state that the chief aim of the Series was to encourage investigation in fields of study 'lhitherto surprisingly neglecteclil in Au-stralia. The Australian student, Heaton said, was

interestecl in European developments but soon became curious about his orvn continent and attention had thus to be given to Australian economic history and to the story of his own labour. movement.29 Thus, the aspiration to provide scholarly studies of Australia's social, economic and politlcal growth went beyond the provì.sion of class texts. It was envisaged as "fathering essays and monographs of a research character, such as would be published in Great Britajn by a University Press".30 Five of the nine books in the series are discussed substantially in

the chapters on their authors: Atkinsonts Ihe Neu SociaL )rdez., Heatonrs

Modey,n Economic Historg uttth special refenence to Ausl;ralia, Portusì

Marr and l,4odey,rL 'J'hought, Mayors Democz,arn¡ and Freeclom and Blandts

Shadoas arul Real.íties of Gouennment. All of these appeared between

28G.V. Portus, General Preface to books in W.E.A. series. 29FI. Heaton, "The Teaching of Economic History in Universities'r, (IV) on Australia, Eeonomic llistorg Reuieu, Vol. 3, 1932, p. 344. 30rr1¡ir¿ Annual Report of lne Workers' Ed.ucational Association of Australia, I922tt. AustraLian Highuay, October L923, p. L52. ')q

1918 and 1925 ' The other four books included the first Australian

edition of Henry Bournes Higgins, Haruay,d Lcn¡ Reuie?, essays on the arbitration system, A Neu prouince fon Lcns and )y,der, a reprinting

of J.B. condliffe's civics text written for the Nerv zearanð. lV.E.A., The Life of Society, and two research theses, J.T. Sutcliffers Htstoty of Trade ttnionism in Austv,alia and F.R. lr{auldonts A study in sociaL Economics: The Huntev' Riuey, vaLley, the last of the series published in 1927. supplementing the Series were other publications, notably

Atkinsonf s col lerction of e.ssays, Atætralia. EaonomLc ancl ltolitical

studies (1920), which he clairned as dre first comprehensive and ar.rthoritati ve work on the sociological and econonic condition of

Au.stral ia. Among his contributors were lrfayo, portus, Harrison Moore,

w. Jethro Brown and r. Gri-ffith Taylor. It was common practice also

to is-sue I{.E,4. lectures in twopenny pamphlets: Heaton's book appeared

originally. in this forrn in 1916 . public syrnposia which the w.E.A.

sponsored, such as its conference on Trade Unionism held in 1915, weïe often recorded in print as were special lecture series given under its auspiccs: Rernard Muscio's early lectures on industrial psychology wcre publishecl under the lv"ll.A. inrprint. rn 1919, the Australian movenlelÌt Êollowed the cxample of thc parent association in Britain by est¡blislring its own journal, the Ausl,TaLL(m Híghucty. Edited for many ycars by F.A. Bland, this litt1e monthly tried hard to keep in touch with overseas ideas, tc¡ review the latest books on sociological and international questions and to write about Australia in informed terms. It is argued in this thesis that these publications - ì_n particular the W.E.A. Series - are thenselves events in the little-known chronology of ideas and i-nte1lectual life in modern Australia. In current Austral- ian historiography they have been almost cornpletely forgotten. 26

In 1973, Geoffrey serle remarked on the prirnitive state of our

knowleclge of the history'of learning and scholarship in Australia and on the work yet to be done on the sociology of ideas and culture.3I His comnent came in the context of his own effort to remedy another inportant gap, that of cultural and artistic history, and, since his pathbreaking From Deserts the pz,ophets come, there have been further advances in our understanding of the experience of our creative writers set against their own times.32 But, the terrain of intellectual history, especially in the twentieth century, renains still largely uncharted despite an excellent survey of econonic thought up to the 1920's in

Craufurd Goodwints Economíc En4uitg in Austz.aLia and some valuable

individual studies such as R.I{. crawfordls biography of George ArnoId wood, J. La Nauzets study of walter lrlurdoch, Don watson rs life of Brian Fitzpatrick and A.J. Bakerrs work on John Anderson.33

The only published work whj.ch has paid systematic attention to

the w.E.A. group as interlectuals, rather than as pioneers in an

t institutional development, is Tim Rowse s Austy,ali,an Libey,alism and. r

Natiornl cha,actet, (1978).34 In a broacl chronologicat study from the

turn of the centurv to the present, R.owse presents these ,secular

3lGeoffrey serle , tr'z,om Desev,ts the pz"ophets cone rhe cy,eatiue spinit ín Austz,aLra 1788-1922 (Melbourne preface. 32Recent t975) studies include Dorothy Green, llLusses Bound.: Henny Hondel RícLta.r'dson and Hez, lliation (canbetra 1973) ; John Dock er,'tLsillusion Au"stnaLian cuLturaL ELites (Sydney 1974); David walker, Dream and (canberra 1976); Axel clark, chm,stopher Brennan, A critícaL Biogtaphy (Me lbour:ne 1980) . 33craLrftrrd Goodwin , Econonric EnquLrg in AustraLia (North Carolina 1966); J. La Nauze, þlaltez, Murdoch; A Biographical Memoiz. (l4elbourne tA Lg77); R.l\4. crawford, B¿t of a RebeLt (sydney lg75); A.J. Baker, Anderson,s s_ocial-PhiL-osophy (Sydney 1979); Don l^/atson, By,ian Fitzpattick A RadicaL Life (sydney lg79) . Two other valuable monogropi,s are Bruce McFarlane, Professoz: rv,uine'ts Ecornïrics ín Austy,aLia, robou, Historg 1913-1933 (canberra 1966) and Michael Roe, wilLi.am Jethro Btoun (University of Tasrnania Occasional paper r+Tim 7, Ig77)'Char.acten . Rowse , AustraLian Liberalism ond wotional (llelbourne 1s78) . (

11

cvírnllcli-stsr? as cxhibitjng thc gcncral f¿rilurc of libcral intellectuals in modern Australía to challenge the hegemony of the capitalist ruling classes. His basic thesis - that the w.E.A. tutors were the purveyors of a liberal consensus which made them "the organic intellectuals of a rising industrial bourgeoisierr is not new. It repeats in the language

of todayrs French lrlarxists what the radical teft said about the W.E.A.

fron the beginning. The point was as self-evident then as it is now and it is not the intention of this thesis to contest the fact that these men wetce not advocating the violent overthrow of the prevailing

system. rrey were classically men of the middle path, anguishing about the social injustice and the lack of free initiative in industrial society but rejecting revolutionary reconstruction. They placed their faith in the potential of human reason and human altruism to solve

conflict. They were, as Rowse correctly notes, as much rrnew noraliststr

as new social scientists.35 It is important, however, to explore these tensions and, in an analysis of their ideas, their rhetoric and their careers, to discover what u/e can about the existential condition of being a sociologically-oriented intellectual in Australia in those fornative years during and after the first worlcl war.

The studies of each of the principals which make up Part Two of

this thesis offer essential, but partial, perspectives on the experience

of the lV. E . A. gïoup. Only one figure, Ìlerbert Heaton, spans the whole distance from Rochdale England to an erninent career in the social sciences. Heatonrs Australian contemporaries in the w.E.A. network held hin in

distinctive regard as an outstanding scholar among them. In all his

3s rbid., chapter 2 28 enthusiasms and commitments, he serves to define more closely than the others the strengths and weaknesses of the movement. In particular, Heatonrs career in Hobart and Adelaide is a revealing and invaluable case-study of the interaction of this intellectual style with the academy and the cornmunity in early twentieth century Australia. Heatonrs Australian years, therefore, denand separate and extended attention which is provided in Part Three of this study. ***** CHAPTER 2, Austrolion Lobour ond the New Socior Order: the W,E,A, Diognosis 29

'['wo nonths bcfore the Armisticc in 1918, George Beeby, Minister for Labour and Inchrstry in li.S.ltl . warned Australians that new initia- tives were inperative if they were to deal successfully with the major issue of the coning post-l\lar world - the "industrial problernrr: after the l\lar, all allied countries and particularly Great Britain, the Dominions and the U.S. will have to face the industrial position from an entirely new póint of view, and only those countries which are prepared with constructive proposals will avoid turmoil and disaster. I Although the purposc of the W.E.A. was explicitly that of education, the c:cntral challenge to its rational c w¿r-s the "industrial position". The history anC condition of the worker was its basic material and given the ever-volatile industrial problem, much of the educational and

jntellectual energy of its tutors was devoted to the discussion and promotion of I'constructive proposals" for solving the conflicts between labour and capital. A basic prenise of their thinking was that alternatives must be found to the threat of proletarian revolution. As a consequence, this chapter docs not deal with the modes and nethods of reconstruction which they rejected, that is, the theory and tactics of Bolshevism and revolutionary syndical.i,sm. It seeks instead to indicate broadly, but by no means exhaustively, the type of discussion and developments taking place in Australia which were compatible with

the l¡i.E.A. ethos an

'Ihe c.onstructive proposals which the W.E.A. intellectuals advocated were an eclectic but recognisable reflection of the social diagnoses

and ldeas of theorists like Graham Wal1as, J.A. Hobson, R.ll. Tawney

ancl G.D.H. Co1e. These were influential against a background of wide

16. Beeby in rndttstv,iaL Australian and uining Standard, 12 September 1918, p. 385. 30 rcad in¡l i n thc ncw socì ¿rl .sci cnces, espccial ly in economic history, political science, sociology and social psychology. Their conception of society owecl nuch to pluralist theory, and to classic liberalism, so that they were attracted not only to alternatives to revolution but also to alternatives to the present social order connoted in the contemporary term, rrthe servile state'?. They preferred, therefore, to urge non-political and non-legislative means of social reform, placing thelr emphasis on the good of voluntary actìvity, self-help and lcjca1 association. The proposals they favoured moved with the times, from the blending of Co-operation and the efficiency movement of the pre-lVar: decade into a concept of co-operative efficiency, through the welfare work phase which munitions production both nourished and required during the Vlar, to the post-lVar social reconstruction programmes which promulgated the democratisation of industry as the foundation of the new social order. The relation of each of the W.E.A. principals and his work to this complex of ideas is explored separately in individual chapters but it is u-seful to look first of all at the wider world of discourse within which their thinking was situatecl.

One of the first foruns for this cìiscussion was a conference on trade unionisrn and the Labour movenent in Australia, organised by

Meredith Atkinson in mld-1915. Assisted by the Economic Research

Society, in which R.F. Irvine was the key figure, and by the Labour Council of N.S.lV., Atkinson invited speakers to assess the experience of the trade union movement before an audience of delegates from various unions. Atkinson claimed, A conference of this natrrre is entirely new in Australian experience .. . There is the desire of the acaclemic mind searching for knowledge, but '\l

abovc al1 there is the desire oF the Trade unionists to know and understand their own movement.2

This conference, subsequently published as Trade IJnionism i.n Austyalia, was held in June 1915 and gave the first significant public airing to the sorts of social criticisms and ideas that Atkinson and his colleagues in the W.E.A. spoke about for the next decade. The speakers included Atkinson on the relation of trade unionism to Co-operation, J. Sutcliffe

and G. Lightfoot on the history of the movement, F.lv. Eggleston on the effect of industrial legislation on the aims and ideals of the workers, F.A. Russell on inclustrial arbi.tration and IV.G. S¡rence on industrial

and craft unionism. At the time of the conference, Labour u/as at a high point in government, at the federal level and in all but one state, yet the strikingty recurrent theme of this synposiurn was the imninent decay of the Labour movement precisely because of its attainment of

political power. It was living on an o1d idealism and bereft of new directions. Irvine declared

In Australia nost of the traditional aims of Trade Unionisrn have been achieved, or nearly achieved lVhat, then, is left to occupy the attention of Trade Unionists? Failing new purposes, there seens to be litt1e except to act as a watch_dog or to become political organisations for the support of a part,icular party,3

Spence also mai.ntained that the heroic days of Labour belonged to the past and that the worker should place his future in greater study of government, philosophy and economic thought. Lightfoot and sutcliffe cal1ed for research into "the prolonged trial of the machinery of

Tepresentative governnrent'r and Eggleston summed up the fundamental

2M. Atkinson (ed.) T?ade Unionism in Austy.aLia (Sydney 3n.F. flTrade, 1915) p. s. rrvine, Unionism and Effj-ciencyil, Tz,ade unionism in Austz,alia, p. 34. 32

criticism of the conference:

We have gone as far as legislation and mechanical means can take us. We have our higher wages, our increased comfort and the like; but we have not inaugurated a new order

It,luch of what the W.E.A. group construed as social progress at

this time was conveyed ì-n the slogan rlefficiency, which, for them expressed a complexity of ideas, from improved economic and industrial

output to the personal and moral development of the citizen. The

efficiency novement flourj-shed abroad: German efficiency hras adnired by al1 up to the out-break of war, llritish efficiency was the object of a campaign fron the turn of the century and American efficiency had achieved scientific status in the cult associated with F.W. Taylor.5

The W.E.^. speakers werc careful to dissociate thernselves frorn crude

Taylorism - techniques such as speeding up, card systems and ti-me and

motion studies - which they knew to be anathema to the Australian trade unionist. They spoke, i-nstead, of co-operative efficlency, social effíciency and -se1f-efficiency - terms which pruned away the nanipulative

aspects of the movement. They urged an ideal of common interest between employer and employee, arguing that the higher the national efficiency,

the better the stan

the belief in a science of managernent which could, Irvine arguecl, neutralise class confli.ct if it coulcì advance co-operative efficiency abovc clas-s bias. Defined thus, as the expression of an ideal of

rational co-operation, efficiency was readily assimilable to the rnain-

stream ideological inheritance of the tt/.E.A., from Robert Owen to ap.lV. trThe Eggleston, Effect of Industrial Legislation in Australia upon the Ideals and Aspirations of the lVorkers", Trade unionism ín Australia, p . 81. F .) see G.R. Searle, The Quest for NationnL Efficiency (oxford 1971) on Britain and s. Haber, Efficiency and upLift. scientific Manngement in the Progtessiue Ena 7890-7920 (Chicago 1964) on Anerica. 33

Albert Mansbridge. But, as samuel Haber, has suggested efficiency was also a creed which enabled liberals and progressives to evade the real implications of mass democracy. It was, he pointed out,

a standpoint from which the progressives who had declared their allegiance to democracy could resist the leveling tendencies of the principle of equality.6

This was because efficiency required the leadership of the competent and the production of new kinds of experts to guide society. Atkinson, Irvine and Harrison N{oore addressed this problem at a conference in september 1915 ca11ed by the victorian Minister of publi-c works to discuss "National Efficiency". They ternpered their anxiety about democratic rule with a call for an é1ite that would be prepared by a liberal university education based on the social sciences and would also be responsjve to the ways in which social and economic forces affected the general welfare.7 Irvine described this élite as

a brand of men that this community has hitherto had no machinery for produci_ng: the trained and exper_ \ icncecl efficiency expert, who has sufficient intell- \ ectual equipntent to enable him to take the social point of view"8

By the end of the lVar, the debate about efficiency hað, been absorbed into much broader discussion. There had been a heady optinism generated in the earllr ye¿rs of the IVar about the evaporation of class conflict. Lloyd George renarked that r'lndustrial conditions are in solution't but the co-operation of labour and capital in war-time disintegrated with the end of emergency.9 The eruption of unrest in waves of strikes,

65. Ilabcr, op. cit. p. l16. /National Effíciency, a series of lectures clelivered at the Victorian Railways Institute, August-September 1915. The series included M. rrDemocracy Atkìn- son, and Efficiency", R.F. Irvine, 'Nationa1 organisation and National Efficiency" and w. Harrison Moore, r'National Èfficiency and Governmentrr. Irvine, op. ci.t. p. 19. !n.t.vD. Lloyd Goerge in Preface to E.D. proud, welfare work (London 1916). 34 echoes of syndicalism, and fears of Bolshevisrn in all the belligcrent countries, including Australia, fused with the positive need to take stock after such a war and to build anerv. rrsocial Reconstructionr was the new cry but the reality was a raw conflict that seemed instead to promise revolution. In Britain, this period was marked by creative ferment in socialist thinking: between Fabians and guild socialists the debate continued over the nature of democïacy, the role of the state ancl the status of the worker. In Australia, there was little comparable thrashing out of such issues and there was little systematic reconstruction planning such as Lloyd Georgers government had set in train. Apart from the reluctance of Australians to theorise, the reduced and bitter state of politics in Australia by the end of the war accounted in part for the lack of rnuch coherent vision of what

Australia should be like when the troops came home. There was some governnent initiative in the foundation of the Advisory Council of Science and Industry, following a British mode1, but governnent reaction to indu-strial unrest largely took the form of a long and extensive wranglc with the Arbitration system that continued through the twenties. To al1 sides, it appearcd that the Court had not been able to deliver the promi-ses of Higginst rrnerr' province' and, in any thinking about the Teconstruction of indu-stry in Australj-a, the place and future of Arbitration was a crucial element. A further characteristic of the

Australian social order was the extent of government enterprise and the degree to which social reforrn and welfare was dependent on the action-s of governments. In the many courses, lectures, articles, books and pamphlets produced by the lv.E.A. in these years on the problem of industry, non-parlianentary and non-legislative solutions occupied their attention. One of these was the movetnent to rrhumanise" industry through welfare work. 35.

The nodels for: the industrial welfare work movement were the est¿rblishments of Rowntree, Cadbury and Leverhulme in England, Krupp j-n Germany and of firms like Ford, Goodyear and the National Cash

Register Company in the United States. l0 Schemes of I'social betterment't or "model employmentrr embraced a lvide variety of measures aimed at improving the workersr health, hygiene and happiness: they ranged from better ventilation to provident funds to holiday calnps and educ- ational facilities. They were carried out by the 'rwelfare secretariesrf or "industrial advisers'r who worked in the factoryrs rrlabourtt or "sociological" departmcnt. To the W.E.4. circle, the value of such approaches was the fact that they began where industrial legislation left off. They recognised that the wage contlact was not the sum total of the economic relationship between man and master. It was the voluntary nature of the employers? efforts to improve the industrj.al environment which appealed to them, and this was enhanced by the co-operation of the workers which successful welfare work recluired. The most controversial aspect of the movement was the nlotivation of crnployers which mixecl genuine humanj.tarian concern with the pri.ncip1e tlrat "llunanity is Coocì Businesstt. Cadbury, in his Erperíments in InciustriaL )rganisation, stated the essential idea,

the supreme principle has been the belief that business efficiency and the well-being of the employee are but different sides of the same problem.11

In Australia, there was considerable interest in welfare work in several industries. The Advisory Council of Scj-ence and Industry

10For an excellent study of the industrial betterment movement in England through the life of one of its outstanding practitioners, see Asa Briggs, SociaL Thought and SociaL Action, A Study of the Woz,k of Seebohm Routntree 1871-1954. (London, 1961). l lQuotecl in H . Ileaton, WeLfare Woz,k (Melbourne 1919) Bulletin no . 16, Advisory Council of Science and Industry, p. 13. 36 considered the relevance of the area to the mandate for the proposecl

Institute lvhich was basically scientific and technical. The Director, Dr Ge1latly, inforned the council that, in the face of the present degeneration in industrial relations, the prine Minister, w.M. Hughes, wished the new body to give attention to research into matters of this kind. Supported by H.lV. G"pp, GellatIy commissioned Heaton to collect inforrnation on industrial welfare work from around the world to be publishcd as Bulletin no. t6 (1919) in the Councilrs series.12 Inforned. by his own professional knowledge of industrial practice, Heatonrs booklet was a comprehensive survey of developments in Europe and North

America, supplemented by an extensive bibliography. 1 3 He also drew on the standard work on the subject in Britain which had recently been written by E. Dorothea Proud, a South Australian studying at the London School of Economics, Proud believed that welfare work rnight be toler- ated by Australian workers who would not generally accept either charity or efficiency measures. l4 Heaton announced in his preface what he and his lv.E.A. colleagues considered a proper and comprehensive inclt¡strial policy - one that lookecl further than the deliberations allowed in the Arbitration system:

(it) goes deeper and faces such matters as the whole - aim of industry, the responsibilities which fal1 on the shoulders of a man who employs other nen, the effect of industrial conditions upon the worker and the work, the well-being of tlie employee outside work- ing hours, the distribution of wealth procluced, and

I2tr4inutes of the Advisory Council of Science and Inclustry, 10 February 1919, 3l March 1919, 14 April 1919, 14 .Iuly lg19, l5 septenrber 1919. This information wa.s kindly supplied by Mr K.A. Green, Àrchivist to C.S.I.R.O. 13H. lleaton, weLfare tnloz,k, op. clt. (Heatonrs name does not appear on thc Bulletin). laE.D. Proud, op. cit., Authorrs preface. E. Dorothea proud was a graduate of the University of Adelaide and the recipient of the first catherine Helen Spence scholarship in sociology whiõh took her to the London School of Economics. Her thesis tvas published in an L.S.E. Series, Studies in Eeonomic and PoLiticaL Science, by ü1. pember Reeves. She continued her work as assistant to Seebohm"ãite¿ Rowntree in the British Governmentts new ülelfare Department in the Ministry of lrfunitions. See Briggs, op. cit. 37

finally the participation of the ernployees in the nanagement and control of industrial relations.l5

There wet:c some industries in Australia where moves were being made in these directions, the most notable being in the mining industry.I6

The Broken lli11 Associated smelters at Port Pirie, the wallaroo and lrloonta ltlining and smelting company, and the Electrolytic Zinc company in Tasnania were the nost exemplary because of the importance of rnain- taining industrial peace in such inportant war-time industries and bec¿ruse they were in the hands of rnen like W.S. Robinson, H. Lipson Hancock and II.lV. Gepp who travelled and studied developments in industry beyond Australia. Just as Seebohm Rowntree u/as a generous patron of Albert Mansbridge in Britain, those employers interested in welfarc work in Australi.a were favourably disposed to the operatì-ons of the ltl.E.A. among their employees. Heaton made particular contact with Gerald Mussen who was appointed by lv.S. Robinson as the first industria 1 officer at Port Pirie. 17 lrft-rssen introduced apparently effec- tive welfare schemes if one accepts his own claim that the Smelterst unbroken record of industrial peace during the War could be attributed to t-hem.IB By October 1919, however, his ideals of community and co-

1 5ll . Fleaton, Welfare Wonk, Preface . 169.5. Cook " fndustrial Co-operation ín AustnaLia, Bulletin no. 17, A.C. S.I. (lt{elbourne 1920) provides information based on a hundred question- rlaire-s sent out to firms and business around Australia inquiring about welfare measures. Arnbrose Pratt (ed.) AustraLian Tari.ff Hanfuook (1919) also gathered evj-dence of welfare enlightenment in Australian industry to support the case for the protective tariff. lTsee c. Blainey (ed.) rf r Remenber Rig'htly, Memoirs of w.s. Robinson (l{elbourne 1967) pp. 159-162. Robinsonrs slogan became ,at Least as much care for the nìan as for the ¡nachinesrr. lSThe Broken IIill Associated srnelters Papers, files on industrial welfare r/12/7, Melbourne university Archives, contain substantial records of Nfussenrs work at Port Pirie. writíng to Senator Pearce, Minister of Defence, in Novernber 1918, Mussen asked for the loan of 150 tents to house workers at a seaside resort being established by the Company. He justified the request by alluding to the record of indust- rì-al peace at Port Pirie during the war: I'only with the co-operation of thc employees has it been possible to keep up the essential supply of lead for the Alliesr'. :5 lt

operation weTe dissipated in a long ancl turbulent period of unrest. In the meantime, Mussen was anxious to establish tutorial classes at Port Pirie to the extent of offering a donation towards the saJ.ary of a resident tutor.lg Ruclolph Bronner was appointed to share his time

between Port Pirie and Broken Hill in 1919 but, once the strike broke out at Port Pirie, the w.E.A. rnessage fe11 on stony ground, reportedly

'?impeded by the industrial stagnation at that p1ace". By March 1920, operations had ceased as the workers lost interest in the w.E.A.rs economics and political science and only a weekly class in English literature conducted by a local minister could be sustained.20

rn his early d:rys in Aclelaide, l-leaton had atso been defended

again-st conservative criticism by the nore enlightened management at

Ilroken l-li11. When he addressed unionists at the Trades Hall in Broken LIi11 in rgr7, it was "by permission of the L.v.A.r, the anti-conscription_

ist Labour Volunteer Army. Andrew Fairweather, Underground Superintendent

of the Broken FI.i11 South }fine, justifiecl Heatonts appearance at such a

venue by alguing that there was no point in the lV.E"A. rnessage being

directed to the docile grocers ancl office-men of the town. It was the "firebrancls'r among lhe unions who neeclecl an eclucation in the basic econonics: furthermorc,

Suppose, for instanc.e, the rnajority of our Union lcaders were rnembers of the l1lorkers' Educational Associa.tion here (and I believe sone are regular attendants), and members of the lrlines' staffs joined up, regularly attended, and took interest in discuss_ ions; rvould not good be accomplished? Certainly more good than harm? we might not have any conversions to a new faith, but we should have a better personal l9lvlinutes of the Joint Committee for Tutorial Classes, Ltniversity of Adelaide, entries from 25 septernber 1917 to 1 November 1918. In July l?T, -Mussen requested a furr-time tutor for Broken Hi1r. 'ufbLd.., letter: fron the -secretary of the Port Pirie Branch of the W.E.A 28 April 1920. 39

feeling, and in a1r probability a growth of confidence on the part of one side in the honesty and purpose and motive of the other.2l

The co-operative endeavour of managernent and worker in self-education appeared to gain ground for a time in 1920 under the tutorial guidance of a new tutor, B.H. Molesworth. lulolesworth, A Queensland graduate, had been introduced to the w.E.A., in the persons of R.H. Tawney and Arthur Greenwood, by A.L. smith at oxford: rrthis trior?, he recalled, I'sold adult education to me?t. After two years at Ba11iol, he was sent to South l{a1es to initiate tutorial classes anìong the miners there.

Ilaving met Ij.A. Blancl at the lV.E.A. oxford summer schoot in 1916, he became interested in the Australian movement and accepted a post as copland's assistant in 1918, again working in the mining areas of Northern Tasmania. In 1920, he went to Broken Hill and threw hinself into classes in industrial history and lr{arxian econonics. Despite some of his public staternents being adversely quoted by a loca1 M.H.R. in the parliament and the consequent anxiety of the Joint Committee of the university of sydney about the suitability of the study of lvlarx, Molcsworth?s classes flourished and perhaps enabled that exchange of opposing views which Fairweather hoped for. Molesworth clained that in tl-re lV.E.A. classes the editor of the minersr union paper debated with his opposite number, the edito-r of rhe Banr.ier, that the miners joined discussion with Andrew Fairweather and other representatives of managenent, while the local teachers mixed with the leaders

2lAndrew Fairweather to Colin Fraser, 2g January 191g. B.H.A.S. Papers, 1/18/5, M.U.A. 40

of the unions.22 After Moleswor:th left Broken Hill to take up the

post of Director of Tutorial classes in Brisbane in rgzr, the w.E.A. classes began to fall off. 1921 was a year of industrial depression; Portus concluded that depressed miners had less heart for education.23

In times of industrial conflagration and economic depression,

welfare work and benevolent managenent showed obvious limitations in meeting the needs of the worker. Delivering the annual Joseph Fisher

Lecture in comnerce at the university of Adelaide, which Heaton had

invjted hin to give, Gerald Mussen spoke on trThe Flumanizing of Commerce

and Industrytt.24 Now the Consulting Industrialist to all the Broken

Hill Mining Companies, Mussen clearly revealed his paternalist concept

of industrial welfare. He argued that the labour force depended on the

directive capacity of superior experts and that production would diminish almost in proportion to the amount of worker participation introduced. All men were not equal in the army of production despite

their equalíty as citizens outside the gate-s of the factory.25 This

?-2P,.H. MoÌesworth to Lascelles I{i1son, 27 tlccember 1958, lV.E.A. Fì-les, Department of Adult Education, university of sydney. This letter is an extended memoir. see also Lascelles lriilson, "B.H.Molesworth - A Tribute't, Austnalian Jouv,rtrtL of AduLt Education, vor. Xr, no. 3, November 1971, pp.1s1-1s2. zrG.v. Portus to c. ff. Marsh-Roberts, 10 october r92r. VV.E.A. Fi1es, D.A.E. sydney. l'{arsh-Roberts was the tutor for 1922 in Broken Hi1l. He had been the subject of censure as a w.E.A. tutor in palmerston, N.Z. because of certain utterances about the lvar and because of rrgossip about his character' which Professor T.A. llunter of Victoria university co11ege, lvellington, said was to be explained I'by the fact that his name is mentioned in footnote in Red Eutope, a book banned in this country". T. Hunter to G.V. Portus, 16 November 1921, tl.E.A. Files op. ci.t- 2alulinutes of the Board of Commercial Studies, University of Adelaide. 12 December 1918. Heaton proposed Ìr{ussen to the Board to lecture on rrlndustrial Peace and I{elfare l\lork with special reference to Australian conditions". Also, university of Adelaide Fi1es, Docket no. 97, 1919, frr corïespondence between Heaton and Mussen on the lecture. 25G. Nfussen, The llumanizing of Connnerce and. rndustny, The Joseph Fisher Lecture in comrnerce (university of Adelaide, 1919), especialry pp. 2l-23. 4I was where the W.E.A. intellectuals moved beyond welfare work. They had applauded the actual improvements the movement effected, the exercise of voluntary i-nitiatives, and the good sense and co-operation which it generated, but they insisted on the recognition of some

principles of self-government in industry. Heaton moved to this point

at the end of Bulletin no. 16: Tn short, welfare work ains at humanity in industry, but the recognition of the humanity of oners labour force must involve the admission that oners enployees have ideas of democracy, of self-government and self- expression. Therefore, welfare work must take as its aim humanity in industry and must accopt as the guiding principle of its method democracy in industTy.26

The extent of that democracy, the type of self-government, and

the pace and methods by which it was to be reached, occupied the W.E.A. thinking and teaching for the next few years.

*tr***

While there was a prevailing synpathy among the l4l.E.A. circle

for the aspirations of guild socialists like Orage and Co1e, the most proxinate and practical hope for the introduction of some form of industrial dernocracy seemed to them to lie in the Whitley Reports of

the British governmentrs Comnittee on Industrial Reconstruction. The

Committee was set up in October 1916, under J.H. Whít1ey, to work out

a plan to secure the "permanent irnprovementrr of industrial relations.

The first Interim Report, published in March 1917, recommencled that the government propose to employer and enployee associations the

fornation of .loint Industrial Councils, composed of representatives from both sides, which would run the affairs of each major industry at

26H. Heaton, WeLfane Work, p. 105. 42. a lìational Ìevel. They would be supported by District councils and, at the base, by works comnittees in factories and shops. Such co- operative managenent, it was claimed, would secure to employees a greater share in and responsibility for the determination and observance of the conditions under which their work was carried on,27

The councils would negotiate such issues as h/ages, job security, the training of apprentices, industrial conditions and the use of new processes in production. Works Committees r^/ere not a new concept but the Whitley Report saw new functions for then as paït of a total scheme moving towards self-government in industry. The second Report , a year later, dealt with the relationship of the Joint Industrial Councils to the state, in the eventual hope of lessening the influence of the government in industry; a third Report elaborated on the purpose and organisation of Works Comrnittees. Althougìr the IVar Cabinet, and the British conrnission on Industrial unrest which it set up, adopted the Whitley scheme, there were many who correctly anticipated great difficulty in implementing the proposals, especially where the role of the unions was concerned. One strand of guild socialist thought accepted the Whitley idea as an interim recognition of the principle of self- government in industry but more radical theorists rejected it as too much of a compromise wi-th the wage-system and too small a step towards worker-control. But it was the gradualist nature of the scheme and the endorsement of the principle of industrial democracy which appealed to the W.E.A. promoters of the Whitley Reports. The idea that the worker might be educated slowly to his share in a participatory

27rhe, wh-it\ey Repont, published by rndusttíaL Austv.aLì,an anã. Mining Sta:ndnnd as Industrial Reports no. 1 (Melbourne 1918), 43 industrial democracy was fully in accord with an ideology founded on a belief in educated reason and the exercise of co-operation. They joined the architects of the lvhitley Report in hoping that a future industrial parliament, which gave the worker his rights as an industrial citizen, would promote amity and ?ra profound sense of public servicerr in both employer and worker.

In Australia, the whitley proposals were aired and discussed in industrial and government circles. The fndusttiq.L Austz.alian and

Mi'ning standard reprinted the first Report in pamphlet form and continued to fo1low the experiment in its pages during the post-war years. At Broken Hill in December 1917, lr4r Andrew Fairweather suggested a detailed plan for Industrial councils in the mining industry. He reported to Colin Fraser in Melbourne, that wages policies and welfare work were not sufficient to engage the co-operation of the men and that rrsomething more or something different is needed to secure cohesion in the industrial machine". 28 In N. S.lV. the I{o1man governrnent announced its interest in l{hitleyisn. rn iris policy speech at Lismore in August 1919, w.A. Holnan spoke of his governmentrs intention to introduce a system of l{hitley councils which, in his opinion, were beginning to work with success in Britain. Holrnan clained that such a move would

1n many cases reconcile the interests of labour and câpital, give the workers genuine concern in the success of the enterprise j-n which they are engaged and open their eyes to the fact that only by increasing production, and not by decreasing it, can prosperity be secured by both parties in the under- taking. 29

28Andrew Fairweatheï to colin Fraser, 2g January 191g. B.H.A.s. papers, r/ 18/s M. u.A. Meratry, 22 August 1g1g, Newspaper cutting in Bland papers, S.U.A.lsnithgo:') - 44.

After his visit to England, George Beeby also advocated a trial of the system. Addressing the Employersr Federation in sydney in 1919, he explained it thus, the essential idea of organisation under the ltrhitley plan is to have in every industry permanent 1itt1e industrial parlianents which will neet regularly and apart altogether fron the wage bargain, seek some means of identifying the labout engaged in the industry as part of the industry, entitled to considerations in questions of management, methods of increasing product- ion and the ratio of division of the total product.30

.Just as the l{inister of Public wor:ks in Victoria, F. Hagelthorn, had prornoted the cause of national efficiency in lgls, now J.B. Holme,

Deputy President of the N.S.W. Board of Trade and Special Commissioner for concj-liation in that state, popularised the l{hitley idea. In 191g, he published two long articles in the fndusl:r,iaL Austy,alian and Míning standard (later printed as two bookrets) on 'rrhe British schene of self-Government in Industry and Its counterpart in N.s.l1l.". He began by describing the urgency of the situation:

the problem of economic readjustrnent after the war will in its industrial and domestic bearings a1one, be of a most formidable character; the nation may r,¿in through the war only to find itself involved in a cartastrophe of an even more deadly character. It does not follow that a nation which survives assaults from rvithout can maìntain its posítion in world-politics when j-t is rent by díssensions within its own body. 0n1y those of the nations which seek industrial peace after the war and ensure it, may be expected to stand in the van of economic p"ogt"-r=.31

His article described the origins and purposes of the Whitley Committee and leported comprehensively on its recomrnendations. The second article

30 fbid: 3lJ.9. Ilolme, The British scheme for self-Gouernment of rndustry; and. Tt;s counl;erpart in Neu south wales, nos. 1 and 2 (sydney 1g1g) preface 45. hlas an attenpt to discuss the application of the scheme to N.S.l{. where, under the Industrial Arbitration (Amendment) Act of 1918, the N.s.w. Board of Trade was entrusted with the promotion of Industrial Councils and Works Committees. In its communications, the Board acknowledged that the provisions of the Act did reflect 'rthe main purpose of a movenent of profound significance which is in foot in Englandrr.32 Australian employers were invited to consider testing the principles endorsed in the 1oca1 legislatj-on in connection with their particular industry. Initially, the Board of Trade recornmended the experiment of Industrial Councils within each industry. Shop Conmittees would require the support of the unions. Holmers stated purpose in adapting the British models was to recognise the paramount importance of the rrhuman factorrr in industry but the major trade unions were not interested in such overtures. The first Industrial Council along Whitley lines was set up in the Boot, shoe and slipper Manufacturer Association33 but those who claimed it as a harbinger of a new era in Australian industrial life did not take into proper account the firm rejection of Whitleyisrn by the N.S.W. Labour Council rvhich advised its members to resj-st the adoption in industry of thj s latest and rnost objectionable forn of labour exploitations.34

The AusttaLian Highuay, editecl by 81and, was convinced in 1919 that a new era of self-government in inclustry was at hand in Britain. Their enthttsiastic study of industrial history and relations, of guild socialist theory and of the Whitley idea, had given the W.E.A. intellect- uals grounds for optimism regarding I'epoch-making'r changes in the British

32fbi.d., pp . 14- t6 . JrUnidentified newspaper cuttings dated 12 September 1919. Bland Papers, S . U.A. z+ tuid. 46 industrial world but, when they turned their eyes to Australia, they were disappointed to find that rnoves for reconstTuction had fal1en victim once again to Australian étatisn. The Highuay noted that the government and press had been 1ate1y paying lip-service to the principles of the Joint Industrial Council and that legislative sanction had been

given to then in the amended N.S.W. Act of 1918 dealing with industTial

disputes, but it saw a problem with the way the l{olman government appeared to 'rimpose upon industry here, an inported schenett. This was part of the reason, the Highuay suggested, for the Labour Councilrs opposition and for the recent rejection of such proposals by the railway employees. The Whitley scheme, it pointed out, v¡as not intended to be formulated by the authorities - its essence was, in fact, the very opposite: it was to be the fullest and freest participation by the Trade Unions in the franing of the scheme under which they are to work!35 It argued that a conference should have been ca11ed to ascertain the views of both Labour and Capital on the re-shaping of industry and to explaín the real theory and principles involved. At such a conference, an industrial plan suited to Australia's stage of industrial development could be elaborated: industry must suggest its own course and its

own rnethods. The Highuay called attention to the recent creation in

England of a National Industrial Council in England to advise government on a1l national industrial questions and it was gratified to see the role played in this body by two leading IV.E.A. men, Henty CIay repres- enting the lvlinistry of Labour and G.D.H. Cole representing the trade unions. 36

35Austv,alian Highutay, editorial , Vol . l, no . 8, October 1919 zø tbid. 47.

No comparablc opportunity eventuated in Australia for the l\l.E.A. tncn to fi I I sttch ¡lctivc-' or :rclvisory rol cs ltut from thoir míìtìy ¡tlzrtfor.rns and i.n their writings t.hcy continued to cxplain and to promote their version of the industrial state. Their message was not confined to the worker. They addressed the nanagement of industry, employer associations like the Chamber of Commerce, loca1 bodies and brotherhoods, the hierarchy and inforned larty of the churches and the general public. It was just as important, in their view, for the owners of capital to understand their rol,e in the present system and to grasp the nature of the cLa-ss conflict which plagued them all. lt/hen the foremost managerneltt journals of the mining industry, the Industz,ial Austz,alian and Mining

Standm'd and the Chemical Engineering anÅ. Miní,ng Reuieu were impelled to cliscuss the industrial problem in their pages, R.F. Irvine and l,leredjth Atkinson were among their main contributors. Betieving that, at the end of the War, there were rrunmistakeable inclications that the

Iabour movenent in Australia is -standing on the threshold of Bolshevismrr, the rndustrial Austv,aLian and Mining stand.av,d began a series of weekly I'The articles ca1led Problem of Industrial unrestrr in its column, "The Sociological Departms¡1rr.37 The Ch.emicaL Engineering and Mining Reuieu announced that nen's mindsrrwere turning to the stucly of sociology'r in the quest for inclustri¿rl peace and so it conunissioned Irvine to write elevcn articlcs entitlecl "The Roots of Orrr Discontent" during 1920 and

1921.38 The Reuie?rts purpose in inviting the professor to its pages was that

3Tfndustt"iaL Austt'alian and Minì.no Stand.ard, 10 January 19f9. The series ran for about eighteen months and included l,fussenrs Joseph Fisher Lecture, an address by J.H. ivhitley to oxford students, and J.B. Holne on the relevance of Whitley Councils to N.S.W. 39chemical Engíneering and. Ìulining Reuieu, s october rg2o. Irvine's articles ran from 5 November l92O to 5 September lg2l. 48

every business nan should know what is involved in profit-sharing, welfare work, national guilds, and other phases of industrial life that are being studied by some of the greatest minds of the period.39

Having the audience of business men in rnind, Irviners articles assessed the role of capital in industry as one of the major factors in industrial

unrest. It was not in the natural order, he instructed them, that the possession of capital should give men sovereignty over the lives of others. FIis views were influenced by Tawneyrs "Sickness of an Acquisitive Society, and Hobsonrs analysis of wealth and he deemed the ideas of the guild socialists as worthy of serious attention since, in his opinion,

change was essentj-al in the present outmoded industrial systern. He predicted the reconstruction of industry along new lines of co-operation

and democracy but he never yielded his insistence that this nust be consistent with the recognition of expertise and the need for efficiency.40 At a IV.E.A. conference, held in september 192r in sydney, on the question

of training for control of industry, Irvine re-iterated this point. He

argued that in the co-operative managenent of industry, which he posed

as the alternative to capitalistlc control, efficiency of rnanagement would be evcn more lmportant. Whatever form democracy took in industry, it must be repre:;entative; the HigvLuay reported his warning:

Industry coulcl not be run by crowcls inlould democracy realise that amateurism in inclustry would be fatal?41

Not every rvorker could be an expert but the proper education of each could preparc him to exercise his influence in the shaping of inclustry and to cl'roose competent representatives.

3e rbid. u!ott. lrvine, "The Roots of Our Discontent", CLLenn cal Engineening ard Mining Reuieu, op,. cil;, Also R.F. Irvine, r'The political Economy of the Mastetst', rndttstTiaL Australian and Mining standand, 27 June l91g and 11 July 1918. 4rAustv'aLian ' Higvway, I November rg2r. Report of conference on rrTraining for Control of Industry'r. 49

During the post-lVar years, the topic of social I'econstruction dominated the W.E.A. programnes. Atkinson in Melbourne lectured durì.ng

1918 on varj-ous aspects from I'Post-war Finance and comrnerce, to'The Future control of Industryr'; in the same year, he gave three lectures to the victorian Railways union on t'Industrial Democracy in state

Enterprises". In 1919, his themes included "The Social Outlook", rrDemocracy in Evolution" and "Co-operation or Revolution?, while at the fir-st national Consumers Co-operative Congress in 1920 he spoke on

I'co-operation and social Reconstructionrf. In sydney, Portus and Bland laboured with equal energy to situate the Australian worker and industry in relation to the reconstruction debate abroad. B1and outlined the cornpelling reasons why the public must become engaged in the issue:

The status of the worker in industry is one of the most pressing problems. The persist-ent suggestion that the social and economic relationships were to be altered after the war gave an irnpetus to the belief that this problem of status was to be faced, that the principles for whicir we felt justified in asking soldiers to die would be translated into reality in our industrial ar:rangements. A commonweaLth is a community designed to meet the common needs of men founded upon the principle of the service of each for all. Ilow far do our present industrial arrangements minister to that ideal?42

In Brisbane, A.C.V. ltlelbourne enlightened the Chamber of Cornmerce on

Profit-sharing and Co-partnershipa3 while his W.E.A. colleague, T.C. lvitherb¡r, causecl a local stir b/ith his lectures on the question "who Sha11 Control Industry?". Witherby made his position c1ear,

There is, one is glad to see, a minority of men among the rvage-earners in this country who do desire self-

42F.4. B1and, 'rThe Control of Industry". Lecture synopsis, Bland Papers, S.U.A. 434.C.V. Melbourne, rrProfit-sharing and Co-partnership', fndustt,iaL Australian and Mininct Standard, 23 october 1919. 50.

government in their own industrial desti,nies, and who know th¿rt they must fit them-selves for this grcat rcsponsibili ty by education and by experimcnt.r+4

In Hobart, D.B. copland addressed the annual conference of the l{.E.A. in October 1919 on the subject of "Trade unionism and Industrial

Democracy"45 and, in Northern Tasnania, Molesworth was anxious to keep up. IIe rvas grateful for the receipt from Bland of eighteen books on reconstruction and wanted to know

lVhat exactly is the Reconstructj-on at which you are aining in Sydney .. . what are they talking about in Ade I a'i de?46

The new social order to which all this discussion Ì{as directed did not fulfil its prornise in England or Australia. The Whitley scheme, the guild socialist visions, the plans for industrial democracy, were aJ.l part of the debate in British socialist theory that was brought into focus by the experience of a world rvar but they did not find any pernanently significant ernbodiment ín the decades which fo1lowed. For a tine, l{hit 1ey Councils prolifer:ated in various j-ndustries in Britain until the experirnents began to dwindle.aT The theorists of industrial democracy, notabJ.y G.D.H. Cole, turned in the end to politics and the British Labour Party.r*B In Australia, there were a few interesting legacies of all this post-ltrar ferment: a significant exampre was the

El-ectrolytic Zinc Company at Risdon in Tasmania where Joj-nt Councils contposed of the representatives of workers and rnanagenent had been set aaT.C. lVitherby, Who ShaLL ControL fndustty? (Brisbane 1919). Quoted and discussed in |telloashíp Vol. 6, no. 4, November 1919, p. 51. 45 Hobav,t fulencunt¡, 3 t October 1919 . a6B.tl. Nfole srvorth to F.A. B1and, 17 September 1918. Bland papers, S. U.A. 474 valuable contemporary assessment of the l\hitley Councils is found il e. Halêvy, The Ey,a of Tyrannies, (New York 1965). 48see J.lr{. lvinter, socialiâm and the challenge of t/ar., (London rg74) on this point. 51. up in 1919 and had, even j-n the face of union opposition, been able to appropriate to themselves some of the wage-determining functions of the Arbitration Court.49 While the central idea at Risclon was the devolution of power and collaboration between employer and employee, it did not, however, represent any radical reconstruction and neither hras it typical.

At the end of the twenties, another W.E.A. figure, F.R. lr{auldon, reviewed the fortunes of the co-operative idea in Australia. Whether it was the rnodcl of the Rochdale Pioneers or that of the Whitley Cornmittee, Mauldon concludecl that it found Australia barren soil. The Australian worker, he decided, rrras willing to accept the paternalism of the state but he naintained his distrust of any patronage on the part of an employer. Ile looked to state legislation rather than to the initiatives of employers and workers so that his desire to rruni-versalise welfare through legislation'r had weakened the efforts of those who harboured the vision of co-operation.50 As Ír{auldon put it, the problem for Australia was to reconcile the traditional resort to the 1egal powers of the state with the nced in any healthy society for the voluntary contributions of its membcrs. Australja must find, he declared,

the requisite eguilibrium between voluntary concession and cornpulsion.51 agJ.B. Brigden, "The Control and Management of Industry and the Question of Giving Employees a Share Therein". Unpublished rnemorandum to conference on industrial relations ca11ed by Prime Minister, Stanley Bruce, 1929. Brigden Papers, MS 730/4. N.L.A. See also R.C. Mi1j.s, rfSone Factors in Industrial Relationst', Ecornmic Record, Vol. 5, May 1929. 50F.R.E. Nîau1don, "Co-operation and l{elfare in Industryt,, Armals of the Amez'ican Acaderryl of PoLitícaL ctnd Socíal Science,, Vol. 158, Novenber 1931, pp. 183-192. Itlauldon was ful1-time resiclent tutor for the W.E.A. in Newc¿rst1e until he joined coplandrs department at the university of Melbourne in the mid-twenties. 51F. R.E. lvfauldon, "Inclustrial Relations'r, a review article on Henry Clay, The Problem of TndustriaL Relatíons and )ther. Lectuz,es, Economic RecoTd, Vol. 5, 1929, pp. 502-503. 52

In Australia, as for the rest of the worlcl, the quest for a new sociaÌ ordcr was challenging and relevant under the pressure of world war and the urgency it had created for reconstruction. For a few years, the critical analysis of the small band of w.E.A. intellectuals did make contact with the articulated needs of employers and workers, but, in the face of either rank and file apathy to the large theoretical

questions or the overt hostility of sections of the Labour movement, their efforts produced little tangible effect on the structure of industry. collaborative ideologies which sought to avoid the issue

and reality of class had 1itt1e appeal to most trade unionists. The l\I.E.A. intellectuals, however, had an interest beyond designing specific solutions to particular issues such as national efficiency,

the welfare of the worl

CHAPTER 3, Mered i th Atki nson: Soc ioloqy i n Austrol io 53.

In October 1915, the journal of the lìnglish W.ll.A., the Highuay, announcecl that Mansbridgers recent visit to Australia was bearing fruit. Mr l'leredith Atkinson would soon leave England to take up the first post of Organiser of Tutorial Classes in the Llniversity of

Sydney. l Born in County Durham in 1883, the son of a blacksnith, he had I'won hi,s way" from Hartlepool Grammar School to Keble Co11ege, Oxford, after holding a scholarship at St. Johnrs Col1ege, Battersea, part of the London Training College. He gained a B.A. in 1908, a diplorna of education the following year, and added a diplorna in economics and political science in 1911.2

Atkinson was introduced to the l\I.E.A. and to Albert lvlansbridge by

Miss Madarns when he was a nember of her correspondence class on Co- operation. According to lt'fansbridge, it was characteristic of Atkinson that he created his own, opportunily to become a lecturer for the Oxford Extensi.on movement. 0n his own initiative he gathered a tutorial class together, induced the Local Education Authority to nake a grant and so became the tutor. From 1911 to 1914, hc acted as extension lecturer in economics for the Llniversity of Durham. At the end of that year he was chosen to pioneer the W.E.A. in the Antipodes, Llansbridge was noved to describe his departure in epic perspectives: farewelled amid cheers from Tilbury, Atkinson and his tÌplucky wife and three little onesrr were taking enli ghtenment to the frontiers - Thus, for the first time a whole I,\l.E.A. family started out to another land, wholly in the interests of the work for which the IV.E.A. stands. It is an epoch-making event.3

rnighuay, Vol. 6, no. 61, October 1913, p. 7L. zwarren Osrnond, "Meredith Atkinson" , AustraLian ùLctiona.r.V of Biography,Vol""t, 1891-1939, pp. I27-I22. rA. l4ansbridge, "Meredith Atkinson Leaves for Sydneytt, Highuay, Vol. 6, no . 66 , Itlarch 1914, pp . Ill-II2 . 54

What had impressed Mansbridge and his colleagues about Atkinson was his organising ability and his botnrdless enthusiasrn. The job in

Sydney, lt{ansbridge wrote, required 'rsound scholarship, untiring energy and infinity of tact'r.4 During Atkinsonrs subsequent ten years in

Australia, his energy was much adnired but his colleagues often doubted that it was always expended in the true interests of the W.E.A. Some were sceptical about the soundness of his scholarship and his apparent lack of the third attribute, tact, caused damage to the novement from its very beginning.

Before Atkinson arrived in Sydney, the infant W.E.A. under its forceful secretary David Stewart, had already begun to establish its association with the university. Atkinson was greeted with ready support frorn R.F. Irvine and Francis Anderson but others like luTungo

MacCallum, professor of English, were suspicious. Stewart had been able to interest the Sydney Trades and Labour Council - on which he was the representative of the Amalgamated Carpenters and Joiners Society - in the new lV.E.A. venture, I-laving successfully enlisted the assist- ance of influential men like Peter Board, Di.rector of the Department of Publ ic Instruction and A. C. Carmichael, It{inister of Education, the l\r.E.A. gained the suppo::t of the governnent and an initial grant of

{1,000 was given to the university to set up the tutorj-a1 classes. The amount was far in excess of the money usually granted to the university for its traditional extension activities. 0n the Senate of the univers- ity, A.B. Picldington emerged as another staunch supporter of the enterprise. Prior to Mansbridgers visit, the university had not

'r lbid. 55.

l'(':il)()tt(l('(l l() ()v('r'lrr'("; l'r'orrr llro W.ll.A. l¡r¡t. lrftor lris r: l'rrstrtlin¡1 totrr

it decided to adopt the Oxford experiment and establish a Joint Comnittee

composed of three university representatives and three fron the llJ.E.A.5

The w.E.A. of N.s.w. was itself patterned on the Ënglish model: a non- partis,an educational organisation controlled by its nembers and governed by representatives from its affiliated bodies such as trade

unions, friendly societies, educational and community groups. The

central council consisted of rnembers elected from branches throughout the state, Tepresentatives from the affiliated organisations and two

delegates fron the Departnent of Public Instruction and fron the uníversity. It was, therefore, a body outside the university which had been pernitted, through its menlbers on the Joint Committee, a voice in shaping the teaching of the university, albeit to extra-rnural students. Thls was a principle which caused concern to more conservative mcmbcrs of the university.

As -soon as Atkinson arrived, Irvine handed over the first tutorial class in indu-strial history, which he had been meeting, and he proposed to the Senate that Atkínson be appointed as a lecturer in econoniic history in the university.6 Atkinson was concerned about the security of his tenure and the level of his emoluments. T Fina11y, the Senate granted him a position within the Faculty of Arts and resolved that l-ris title would be "Director of Tutorial Classes". B In the future, Atkinsonrs preoccupations with status, tenute and personal entitlements pr:oved to be one of the factors which alienated his colleagues. The

50. lvhitelock, The Gy,eat Tradition, op. cit., pp. I2I-I22. GMinutes of the Senate, University of Sydney, 14 ltlay I914, p. 95. 7 tb¿d., 11 october 1915. Blbid., 12 December 1915. 56 first ycar of his administration was the most hopeful of the decade he spent in Australia. The ül.E.A. enjoyed the confidence of the trade unions, there l^ras expectation of increased government assistance and the basis was laid for productive relations with the university. The

War had dealt a severe blow to the existing extension programmes e-specially in countTy centTes. Places like Dubbo and Orange cancelled their projected lectures explaining to the university,

we will have to decline the proposed course of lectures as we consider that owing to the nunrerous calls of a patriotic nature that the public have, we would not secure the attention and support that w,e would wish for.9

However, in the same report, the Chairman of the Extension Board,

Mungo MacCaLlum, noted that the work pf the tutorial classes was showing

gratifying development; classes were being established in Newcastle ancl Wollongong.

In 1915 the new ltl.E.A. was optirnistic. 0f the twenty active classes in N.S.lV. seventeen were in industrial history and econonics, one studied biology and two in Sydney tackled sociology. Tutors included Atkin-son, F.A. Bland, a,U. Portus, H. Duncan Ha11, P.R. Cole and C.H. Northcott.l0 The next year saw an increase in the range of offerings: F.A. Russell, a Sydney barrister, took a class on the principles of 1aw, and a course on modern European history and the War was also added. Atkinson reported a growing demand for political science classes and, at the end of 1916, the.Ioint Committee petitioned the

gReport of the Chairman of the Extension Board (Prof. M. MacCallum), University of Sydney, 1914-15, pp. 5-6. The same point is found in the 27th Report of the Melbourne University Extension Board, 1917. l0Minutes of the Joint Committee for Tutorial Classes, University of Sydney, 8 September 1916. 57 senate for more assistance to cope with the ,demand for social and PoliticaI Sc.icnce in tutorial classes".ll In I917, two classes in another social science, psychology, joined the list - one was conducted by H.T. Love11, later professor of psychology at Sydney, and the other by Zoe Benjanin who specialised in child psychology at the Kindergarten

Training College. 0n the whole, however, the basic diet remained that of industrial history and eôonomics until, by the mid-twenties, this was supplanted by the popularity of psychology. The texts for the l1I.E.A.rs central lending library were ordered and shipped through the EngLish trll.E.4., Alfred Zinmern and R.H. Tawney having been asked to act as the book-buyers. l2 Atkinson built up a library containing most of the mainstream writers in economic history and theory: c1ay, Ashley,

Beveridge, Cunningham, Ely, Hobson, Hobhouse, Fay, Hammond, lVebb, Tawney, unwin, cole, canna,n and Ensor were added to lrfarx, Mi1l,

Marshall, Pigou and Gide. Atkinson did not have nuch to choose fron in selecting books on Australia in 1916 but he found sone works of subst-ance in A.w. Josers Histotg of AustraLasia, E. Jenks, Hístoty of the AustralasLan colonies, B.R. wise?s rhe Making of the Austy,aLian commornieaLth 1BB9-1900, w. Jethro Brownts pre*ention and contnoL of

Monopolies, T. Griffith Taylorts Ausl;y,alia. Physiographic and Econonr\c, A. st Ledgerts AustnaLian socialism and H.L. wilkinsonrs The Trust Mouement in Austy,alia. r3

lvithin the Faculty of Arts, Atkinson introduced a course in economic history which was designed for students in Irvinefs department. tt tuid. rz rbid., I4 l.larch i 9I B. I 3M. Atki nsonf s book 1 i sts Bland Papers, Sydney University Archives. 58

rt was described as a survey of the'revolution of society fron an

economic standpoint' and while it paralleled the course taught by

Heaton in Tasmania and Adelaide, nore time was allotted to the study of primitive, mediaeval and classical systerns before moving to the industrial ancl social development of the níneteenth century. Like Heaton, he advocated the study of contenporary Australian issues

such as agricultural and land policy, factory legislation, trade unionisn and the econornic position of Australia in the Empire and the Pacific. 'fhere was opportunity for students to pursue research into other aspccts of Australiars history and economic progress. I4 However eclectic Atkin-sonts approach to such a wide ranging course may have been, it is remarkable that modern Australia was being studied at aII. The anount of literature on any or all of these areas was at best sparse so that the direction of students to the economic and industrial development was as pioneering a venture as the consideration given to Australiars relations in the Pacific. Nowhere else in the university in 1916 were these issues being studied in any systematic and substantial way despite the ongoì-ng debate within the unjversity over the inìpoltance ¿rnd need for 'rmodern studiest.. George Arnold wood, professor of history, was one who argued that modern languages, history and Engljsh literature be recognised, as compared with the traditional emphasis on classical training, and it was he who proposed at the end of 1915 that Atkinsonfs course, together with a course of Irvinels on the history of economic thought, should be accepted into the Bachetor of Arts Degree. wood himself was important in the expansion of the

1al't. Atkinson, syllabr.ls of a course of sixty lectures on Economic History. Bland Papers, S.U.A. 59. study of Australian h.istory, both at the school and university level, and in his promotion of research collections, but his own work dealt with the discovery and early exploration of Australia. lVhen the events of the War conpelled his attention to recent history, he turned his efforts, not to contenporary Australia, but to a course on Europe rrfrom 1802 to the Present".l5 It was lrvine, Anderson and Atkinson, ffid later Bland and Portus, who argued the significance of the new social sciences and who engaged in the study of modern Australia both within the university and outside it. *****

During the War, Harrison Moore and other members of the Council of the University of l"lelbourne - Dr J.lV. Barrett, F.l1I. Eggleston and M.M. Phillips - had been pressing for money to set up a Departnent of Tutorial Classes. In L917, the governnent of Victoria was able to fulfil its deferred promise and follow the example of Sydney, Hobart and Adelaide. A grant of .€f ,000 was provicled for l9l8 with hopes of increased arnounts in the following three years. A committee of the Council consisting of the Vice-Chancellor, Harrison Moore and Frank Tate, wanted Atkinson for the post of Director, negotiating the matter with the University of Sydneyrflest they take it ili. if Mr Atkinson rvere to be appointed in Me1bourne". l6 On the contrary, everything indicated or irnplied j-n the remernbered and writtetr record suggests that many university people as well as members of the t\¡.E.4. in N.S.ltl. breathed

a sigh of relief when Atkinson departed. By the end of his term in

lsR.M. Crawford, 'A B¿1; of a RebeLt The Life øtd Wot'k of George ArnoLd hlood (Sydney 1975) pp. 273-275. l6Minutes of the Council, University of Melbourne, 20 Decenber 1916, p. 454 and pp. 502-503. 60

Syclney, relations between Atkinson and influential professors in the university had becorne clouded with distrust lvhile, on the other side, the essential bonds between the w.E.A. and the trade unions had also been seriously weakened. Thus, by the end of 1918, the w.E.A. had lost ground with both the university and the workers. within the university, a group of academics, headed by l{accallurn, brought an lndictment against the financial managenent of the Department, against its maintenance of acadernic standards and against Atkinsonls general procedurcs. Aftcr Atkinson left for Melbourne, an inquiry by the Senate was initiated to inquire into Mac(lallumts charges.lT The loss of support from the trade unions rvas, a.s we shall see, a result of Atkinsonrs personal and fervent campaigning in favour of conscription.

For his part Atkinson was ready to rnove to llelbourne on the condition that the university nake satisfactory provision as to his status. It agreed to amend its offer so that the Director of Tutorial Classes would have the ranl< and title of professor and, in March 191g, Atkinson was duly welconed as a mernber of the Professorial Board.lB From the first, he claimecl -sociology as his field and expected t.o bc appointed eventually to a foundation ch¿rir of soc-iology which would head up a new department. llc describecl his ambitions to D.B. Copland, his fellow Director at the

Univcrsi ty of Tasmania :

l.lelbourne has taken me to its bosonì - an astonishing reception. Far exceeded ny wildest expectations I have made a start with the establishment of a school of Economics ancl Sociology. To avoid rivalry with poor Ke11y (lecturer in political economy) I am to take

17G.v. Portus, Ir.lemo on lrlaccallumts charges, Brand papers, Department of Adult Education, university of Syclney. This inquiry is discussed further in Chaptcr Four. lBMinutcs of tñe Professorial Board, University of Melbourne, I November I9I7, p. 289; 28 November, p. 2gO, and 2I March 191g, p. S0g. 61

Sociology and will probably ultirnately take that chair, another nan taking Econornics and Commerce. l9

Dur:ing his tern at ltfelbourne until he left for leave in August I92I - then resigning in Aprrl 1922 - Atkinson was responsible for the teachìng

and examinations in sociology which was a subject in the Arts Degree. He expected that when the University 8i11, which re-funded his appoint- ment, was passeð. in 1922 he would become chairman of a new department of sociology especiatly since the establishment of a chair in economics and commerce rvas now being confidently projected. He argued that the sarne status should be accorded to his subject:

As I am lvel1-known to the public as a lecturer and writer upon sociology, the inference that I had been superseded rnight readily be drawn.20

Indeed, he envisaged an even larger design - ultimately, a Bureau of Socjal Science (perhaps Commonuealth). Linked up with all this, of course, is my idea of making my Department through close touch with Economics and Soci.ology inside tlne University into a sort of External Faculty of Social Science. These are a few of the nlore obuious schernes that occur to me ...2r

Outside the university, Atkinson had been campaigning for public

support of a cornmerce department. The University Council approved a

lecture series to be given to the Chamber of Commerce in 1919 on the

'rideal training of business menil and the status of business as a profession.22 Atkinson spoke to persuade lr'lelbourners merchants that business could be raised to the same -specialised status as that of other professions and that the economics of business could be treated

l9l't. Atk i,nson to D. B. Copland, 24 Marcl'r 1918. Coplan,J Papers, MS 3800, National Library of Australia. 20Atkinson to the Chancellor, University of Melbourne, 3 September 1918. Itfelbourne University Regi stry Fí1es I92O/44. 2lAtkinson to Copland, 24 Nlarch 1918, op. cit. 22l,finutes of the council, university of Melbourne, 7 Jury 1919, p. s06. 62.

as a science within a bToad liberal university education. From the study of such subjects as the psychology of labour, cument social

theory and ethics, and the developnent of industry and commerce, business men could be equipped with knowledge of'rthe complex social

environnentrt in which business operated. Such an education could be

formulated in an appropriate university curriculum based on economics but extending also to sociology, public administration, history,

industrial psychology and perhaps even biology. Such would be the rrscientifict' preparation of men for the business wo11d. Fina11y, he

declared, that if Australia were to nake industrial and cornmercial progress beside the nations of the world, the business men of lvlelbourne nust assist materially in the for.mdatic¡n of a department of economics and commerce in their r_rniversity. He concluded, That we can properly develop this Continent without such a thoroughly scientific school is unthinkable23

The department of economics and commerce becane a reality in 1924 when Douglas copland was appointed to the chair but sociology did not enjoy the sane legitimation. In retrospect, it may be judged that Atkinsonrs -schemes were gïandiose but this should not obscure his real ability to diagnose the intellectual needs of Australia at the time. From his arrival in 1914, he had urged Australians to examine their orrrr society and to develop those faculties in the universities necessary for social analysis. His ortrn contributions to the teaching and writing of sociology had certain limitations but he also brought to Australia the entrepreneurial energies and ski1ls to organise the

23M. rrThe Atkinson, Economics of Commercerr , Mid.-Day Conrnet,cial Lectuyes (Nlelbourne Chamber of Commerce l9t9) pp. Lg-25. 63 intellectual efforts of others. He arranged conferences, lectures and publicatì-ons which were thenselves land-marks in the study of Australian conditions so that, in the end, his most positive and lasting achievement was the marketing of a social science mentality.

Atkinson pointed to the absence in Australian universities of social sciences that were well established in other countries. Like his colleagues in the IV.E.A. work, he saw a fundanental connection between his own vocation of adult education and the teaching of the social sciences. lV. llar:rison Moore had seen the same connection when he petitionccl the governnent for funds in 1916. He argued that the tutorial classes would give the workers a chance to study economics, an area "in which they consider themselves most deeply concernedrr. Such an education gai-ned through the l^/.8.4. programmes would temper

the hostilj-ty of the workers and make them less vulnerable to propaganda bascd on class-interest rather than knowledge. l^lithin the university,

l,,loore hoped for a close collaboration between the Department of Tutorial

Classcs ancl the future development of econornics. As he planned it, the staff of the tutorial classes would attend to rrthe more socially critic¿rl a-spects of economi-cs" in the teaching of economic history and industrial relations while the future professor of economics would cover economic theory and cornrnercial princì-p1es. Clearly to Moore, at the time, the introduction of tutorial classes into the university was a step forward in the crucial development of economics. He observed

how the ül.E.A. classes in Sydney had encouraged the study of economics

because of the need to train their or^/n tutors. Extending his subnission to wj.der considerations, he appealed to the needs of a new nation. In Australia, he pointed out, the combination of unique industrial arrangenents in the arbitration systern and the exigencies of war-tine 64

/ ptanning had neant an Lrnparalfåd extension of government into conmer:ce and industry. This would increasingty require numbers of experts trained, not only in his own field of law, but also in a new type of

'reconomic and sociological trainingrr of the sort which would enable them to investigate facts and to plan intelligently. Thus, Harrison It4oore urged on the government the educational and public value of the

tutorial class teaching, and the relevance of the disciptines elpoused

by the l4J.E.A. tutors.24 Atkinson pursued a similar line of argument. It was a cardinal point in his criticism of Australia that the country had achieved the highest social standards but had contributed to the

world no social theory to account for them. His ambition was to remedy the anonaly betrveen progressive social action in Australia and the

poverty of sociological thought.2s Sociology was, accordingly, the

subject which he deened most essential to this task and the one which

he claimed to profess. In order to locate Atkinsonts sociology in the intellectual context of the period in Australia, it is necessary to review the state of the discussion of the field in the preceding years.

The demand for the teachíng of sociology in Australian universities, which was heard even before the lVar, was part of a wider plea for the

introduction of the social sciences into the traditional curricula. To

its early proponents, however, sociology was not just orLe of the desi,rable social sciences - it was the I'central sciencefr, or, as they variously termed it, the rrmother-scienceil and the 'tfundanental science". Addressing the 1912 meeting of the AustrahsianAssociation for the

24W. Harrì-son Nfoore, Recornmendations to the Minister from the Melbourne University Extensì-on Board, 1916. Melbourne University Registry Files rsr6/347. 25p1. Rtkinson, "The Australian Outlook" in M. Atkinson (ed.), Austz,aLía Economie and poLiticaL Stuã.i,es (London 1920) p. 9 . 65.

Advancement of Science, Francis Anderson argued that sociology was the science which gave coherence to all other social sciences: just as the fundarnental sciences of physics, chemistry and biology could be described as mother sciences embracing and unifying rnore fragnented areas of knowledge, so sociology was the cotnterpart in the social sciences. It welded the knowledge of the other disciplines into the who1e. Anderson explained that economics, for example, was one of the social sciences but it did not have the cohesì-ve power of sociology: it (economic-s) deals with a fragrnent, and not with the whole. Its results are valid and intelligible only when brought lnto connection with the larger life of society . ..26 Andersonrs view was endorsed by Irvine in his report on his North

American tour delivered to the Melbourne University Association in 1914. lle too believed that sociology was the sr,rbject which alone could make sense of that rtone great unity - human experience". Sociology invaded all the territory from which it could get evidence as to the process of hurnan association and social evolution as a whole. In his formulations,

Irvine drelv on American sociologists, Albion Smal l and E,4. Ross, quoting fron Ros-s | ['ounrlntions of Sociology : Sociology no longer fal1s apart into ncat segments like ¿r peeled orange. State, 1aw, religion, alrt, morals, industry, insteacl of presenting so many paral1e1s of development, are studied rather as different aspects of one social evo1ution,27 Atklnson shared this holistic notion .of sociology as the key to the whole of human learning and activity. He expressed its value in these terms :

26F. Anderson, "Sociology in Australia: a Plea for its Teachingrr, IgI2, reprinted in SociaL Horisons, July 1943, p. 17. 27R.p. Irvine, The Pl,ace of the Soeial Sciences in a lulodetn Uni,uersity (Sydney 1914) p. 13. 66.

today we see politics, economics and ethics being drawn into something like a sociological unity. This is all to the good, for tliough we may lose sonething through the vagueness and pretentiousness of the new subject of sociology, its suggestion that the human problem is a complete whole, and can only be solved by our treating it as such, is of real value in the process of reconstruction. 28

sociology in this perspective could clain to be the "science of societyrr. The second claim advanced for the new science was its positive validity. It was to be distinguished from what had earlier passed for social study, fron what Anderson called the ra priori constructions of philosophetsrf selected to reinforce deduced conclusions.

The modern sociology, he declared, did not have its links with moral ethics but with the scientism of biology, applied psychology and economlcs, although, for Anderson, rrvine and Atkinson, this did not absolve social science from its humanistic responsibilities. The great tool and underpinning of the new sociology was to be the use of statistics and the analysis of social data. Irvine annormced that the methodology of sociology would conforrn to that of all the positive .sciences; he defined it as the analysis of data to discover relation- ships, and the evaluatlon of facts to determine their worth in the dynamics of human progress. As Anderson put it, the great rfact?r to be explained was society itself. Sociology would discover its genesis, its growth and the laws which governed it.

What these men meant by the scientific investigation of social progress which they associated with the procedures of sociology was not at all clearly spelled out. Irvine offered suggestions drawn from Anerican models, which he had observecl, as the basis for such activity.

28ttl. Rtkinson, The Neu Social Ord.ez, (Sydney 1919) pp. 63-64. 67.

It nust first of al1 involve the collection and the organisation of dat¡r. ln Ancrica, hc h¿rcl bccn imprcsscd by the privatc and public fundì-ng of repositories of data in research bureaux and by utilisation of such research for conmunity purposes and for the formation of public policy. He cited the Social Museum at Harvard and the Capitol Library in Madison, llisconsin, as two examples of the housing of social data on all questions and from all countries. In the collected reports, maps, statistics, newspapeîs, photographs and so on that were available to experts in such places, one might find out about subjects ranging from experj-nental town planning in Wurtenburg to the incidence of strikes in Australia.29 Thus, Irvine envisaged a sociology that was at the service of social planning and reform.

The first person to undertake an explicitly sociological evaluation of Australiars progress, Clarence Hunter Northcott, also intended a progranmatic mission for sociology. lt was the task of the sociologist, Northcott held, to evaluate the ideals and estirnate the defects revealed in the development of democracy. In so doing, he rmfolds implicitly a progran of sociaL efficiency.30 His basic assumption was that social forces could be controlled towards a "consciously realised social end" and that it was the duty of the sociologist to discern the positive social forces. In Northcottrs terms, the desired end was a more moral social order characterised by harrnony rather than class conflict:

29R.F. Irvine, 'rNational Organisation and National Efficiencytr, in NationaL Efficiency (Melbourne 1915) pp. 17-20. 30C.tl. Northcott, Australian SosLaL DeueLopment (Columbia N.Y. 1918) p. 33. (¡8

In the last resort the creation of social values, consciously recognised and pursued, into which divergent purposes are transmitted, alone can produce social harmony. The enunciation of these valuðs is the work òf sociology.3t

Northcott gave the first classes in sociology for the }tI.E.A. in sydney

in 1915 and 1916. As well as being one of Atkinsonfs first tutors, he

had been a student of Francis Anderson at the University of Sydney where

Anderson had introduced him to the elements of sociology. At the end

of 1916, Northcott utent to Colunrbia University to work under a noted Anerican sociologist, Franklin H. Giddings. prior to his departure he had also been an active proponent of the social gospel in the

Ivlethodist church. In the setting up of a 1ocal equivalent of the English union for Social service, he had felt the pressing need for more detailed knowledge about Australian society in order to define

Church policy. At the lr{ethodist Church Annual Conference in l90g he had ca1led for the solid research on which to base social action: Every well-balanced mind will agree with the necessity for the collection and study of soci-al facts. In Australia we have no reliable data on which to base any worthy opinion upon social questions. Nor clo we, except in the most general terms, realise the exact and correct attitude of the church towards social facts and problems. 32 His doctoral thesis, published by columbials Faculty of polj-tical science in 1918, was entitled Azlst;ralian social DeueLopment. It was both an attempt to anal;zse Australiars social experiments and an effort to cleduce guidelines for continued progïess - as such it equated ethical reform with rrsocial efficiencyn.

Northcottrs basic thesis was that the history of Australian social

3|tbid., p.272. 32see -1.n. Bo1len, Pz'otestanl;ism and. Social Reform ín New South tnlaLes 1890-1910 (Melbourne 1972) p. It7. 69. clcvclopnrcnt w¿rs thc history of thc st.r:uggle of a social ideal to manifest itself: that of a progressive social democracy. He began by lool

efficienc), ma). have been that of F.H. Giddings but Northcottrs practical recornmendations at the end of the book were a blend of conservationism, mild industrial democracy, exhortations to the pursuit of industrial efficiency and a call for worker education.33

'l'he claims of Northcottf s book to any sociological interest lay

mainly in his own conception of the ta-sk, in the questions he posed and

in his attempt to explain progress in terms of groups and classes. He

1?- rJFor a discussion of the influence of F.H. Giddings on Northcott see Lesley Dunt, John Deuey and the Australian Educatoz.s (c 1890-1940) (Il.A. Tliesis, University of Melbourne 1974) pp. 138-150. 70 used statistical and legislative materials, such as official year books and arbitration reports, as the basis for his work, considering them 'rscientific" data compared to the mere impressionism of travellersr chronicles or the clescriptive history which passed for nuch of the study of Australia before the War. However, despite the charts of occupation, strikes, wage-rises and the like that raised the status of the work, there v/as no attempt on Northcottrs part to act as primary investigator ancl to generate his own social data. Irvine and North- cott both emphasised the coLlection of data and the analysis of information as an essential tool of sociology but Atkinsonrs efforts to promote sociological inquiry did not involve techniques of empirical investigation. In the rné1ange of history, political philosophy, basic economics or political economy, international relations and moral persuasions that constituted his courses and writings, it was difficult- to discover the rrsociological unity" he claimed for the subject. Atkinson did share with Irvine and Northcott, however, the conviction that sociology would serve social reconstruction, elucidate cohesive social values and assist manrs evolution to a higher social state. The kcy to continued progress, for Atkinson, was the degree to which the base and irrational proclivities of the ordinary citizen could be raised up to the altruistic service of the cornmunity. The problem, he proclaimed, was how to rralter the attitude of mind and the character of the massesrr. The means of this transfornation was to be the sociological education. '

At the University of Melbourne, the development of sociology has been projected as early as 1912. 0n the retirement of J.S. Elkington from the chair of modern history, nodern literature, logic and political economy, it was proposed to make history a separate chair and to ask 71. the government to fund a new one for econonics and sociology. Dis- agreentent between the rniversity and the Premier of Victoria over whether or not an Australian must be appointed to the position finally led to the collapse of the whole venture.34 Sociology entered the University of Melbourne through the Department of Tutorial Classes when Atkinson appropriated the field in 1918. The subject was offered at pass and honours 1eve1s in the school of history and political science and in the school oF philosophy; about a hundred students were enrolled each yeaT

In 1919, Atkinson constructed his course around the developnent of social theory and the principles and problems of sociology. The first part, called 'rsocial evolutionrl, covered the history of society, the underlying principles of western civilisation, the growth of democracy and the I'social problemrr. The second looked at social institutions, the relation between the individual and the state, the relation between sociology and ethics, psychology and eclucation, and thefrpresent task of social sciencerr. By I92I , the course had been broadencd to include morc contemporary issues. Atkinson introduced his students to the thcories of society held by what he termed the social determinists, religionists, psychologists and the ethical school social institutions such as family, property law and government were studied before the course noved to a series of lectures on theories of social reconstruction - collectivism, syndicalism, guitd socialisrn, liberalism, religion and internationalisrn. The final section comprised

34see C.D.l\r. Goodwin , Economic Enquíry in Australia p. 580 and also Ernest Scott (Melbourne 1936) p. 204. At{ eho.9 o ?- rì \ \rg f.St ô Ê tqeibo., rne 72. a study of the "social complex'r, neaning the class structure, an analysis of interest groups, modern dernocracy and community, and rrthe social slmthesis't. The honours year provided for extended study of the developnent of sociological theory and of "nethocls of social anelioratiet'trr.35 lvlost of Atkinsonrs thought was clearly derived fron contemporary British and some American social and political theory - there vlas no trace of the influence of classical European soci-ologica1 wri-ting - of, for example, Le Play, Durkheim or Weber. Among his British texts were the tvorks of Ilerbert Spencer, Bertrand Russe1l,

J.A. IIobson, Graharn Wal las, L.T. Hobhouse, B. Bosanquet, A,V. Dicey and A.J. Todd. lle used American sociologists, Albion Sma11 and F.H.

Giddings, for the general principles ancl elements of sociology; he also drew on R. It4aclverts work on community and Mary Parker Follettrs

The Neu State.36

In his autobiography, Country and CaLLing (1954), one of Atkinson's students, I\l.K. Llancock, disnissed the course as the "nn-rnbo-jumbo that was cal1ed sociology", recalling it as a mixture oftrsecond-hand fact, dispr-rtahl c gencralisat.i ons and a pretentior-rs vocabular:y". 37 This was llancock looking bacli in the nineteen fifties, yet there is a case to be nade that his own seminal rvork, At,Lstralia, owed much to the formulation of problems first encorn:ìtered in that course. What was important about Atkilrson's endeavours r\ras its attention to the contenporary - a point which has force only in its historical context where one notes the

35The Calendav, of the Untuey,sity of Melbou.Tne, 1919, p. 432 and Ig2I, pp.s07-s08. 5bl"l . Atkjnson, Memorandurn to the Prenier of Victoria, I92I , seeks support for sociology and includes a list of reference books used in his W.E.A. course. Atkinson favoured the government with a synopsis of each book. I{elbourne University Registry Files I92I/775. 37w.f. Hancock, Countrg and CaLLíng (London 1954), p. 70. 73.

decidedly uncontemporaneous offerings of the universities in this period, and the thinness of intellectual and public debate outside them. Atkinsonts sociology reveals a set of contemporary preoccupations about society which he did try to work out in their Australian context. He introduced his students to the problematic of democracy, a troubling and uncertain phenomenon in the post-war years in most countries, to the question of the relation of the worker to industry, and of the citizen to politics and the state, and to the problem of where to locate the life of society itself.

Atkinsonrs book rhe Neus sociaL or.der, A study of post way, Reeon- struction contained all of his central ideas as he had already published them in numerous lectures, and articles for Steadts Reuieu, the Melbourne Herald and the Rotutd Table. Published in 1919, it was number two in the new tr{.8.4. Series and rvas intended as a text for the sociological and economic Òourses offered by the W.E.A. Conscious of the eclectic scope of the questions it adclressed, Atkinson defended the need for such a book which aimed at a rrunified treatmenttr of the problems of Reconstruct- ion. Ile announced that sound criticism of the existing order, and a rrdetermination to seek solutions consistent with the principles of the larger humanityrr, b/ere essential to any discussion of the subject.33 The seven sections of the book - the nenesis of history, the forces of unity and progress, a ncw era in education, the international problem, post-war commerce and finance, the industrial outlook, the British Empire and the new order - raised issues and questions which were not peculiar to Australia but lvhich, the l\I.E.A. intellectuals argued, were

3BM. Atkinson, The Neu SociaL Oz'd.en, preface. 74. not being sufficiently examined within Australia

The problem fundamental to Atkinsonrs social thinking was the ??pathorogy of democracytr: nanrs evolution to a more refined plane of

reason and civic devotion was as yet lamentably imperfect. The people - the stuff of democracy - were still artdark horse'r. Motivated by fear and passion, rather than by reason, and oppressed by ignorance, the masses could not understand the complex matters which they now controlled nor could they be trusted to elect those who did.39 How, Atkinson asked, was a society to reconcile freedom with the need for efficiency, and match elective choice with government by men of proper ability, when

it had to chance the risks of primitive mob psychology in the democratic process? The people rvere not yet fit for democracy; they suffered from "insufficient devotion, feebleness of spirit and the lack of knowledge".40 If they were not able to run a democracy, Atkinsonts logic continued, they were even less ready for a millenialr post- revolutionary Marxist state. 4l

both in morality and intelligence, the masses are utterly unfit to build up the new social order.42

To coturteract the pessinisn of this view of human natuïe,

Atkin.son professed a belief in the evolutionary concept of manrs progress and in education as the transforning force needed to shape the human ¡naterial of the future:

lglbi.d., pp. 85-87. Also, M. AtkinsonttDemocracy ancl Efficiency" in NatiornL Efficiency, op. dt., pp. 2I-25. 40¡4. Atkinson, rndustr,T.aL Democtacy in state Enterprises, a series of three lectures given to Victorian Railways Union, Novenber, 19l8 (Melbourne 1919) p. 35. 11u. Atkinson, Th¿ Neu SociaL Order, p. 64. "214. Atkinson, CapítaL and Labouz, -- Cb-operation oz. CLass War,? Lecture to the Anglican Social Questions Conmittee (Melbourne 1918) p. 7. 75.

false ideals, the evils of indlrstrialism, international prejudice and hatred, self-seeking of individuals and peoples, a1 1 can. be cured through education and through education alone.4 3

The education which Atkinson advocated was plrogressive in ethos and method, deriving fron Rousseau, Robert owen, pestarozzi, Dewey and

Montessori. Free inquiry, student-centred learning, and the expression of the individual would accompa,ny a curriculum geared to citizenship: controversial areas such as politics, religion and ethics would be included.a4 The tutorial class was a microcosm of dernocratic education characterised by co-operati-ve learning and self-goveïnment in its adlninistration. As he conceived it, thc tutorial class pltogramtne was the most appropriate to a civic education leading mcn to greater public spirit and advanced efficlency. In all, such an education would act as a solvent of class conflict by modifying class stereotypes in the rninds of the workers, and increasing resistance to ideologue and agitator. *****

iVlten Atkinson turned his sociological analysis to Australia, his assumptions ancl tests were formulated in a mental framework which he brought ivi th him from England. He saw Australia as a fortunate land ancl spoke with enthusiasm of the envirotrnental advantages which had helpecl produce a healthy people with a high standard of living and an inhcrited freedorn from the evils of an older feudal world. Australians had achieved irnpressive neasures in improving their material 1ot but, in his opinion, the "higher level of social Iife sti11 eluded 1þsmrr.45

a 3lvl. Atkinson, The IIeu SoeLaL Orden, p. IO7 . ++ fui.d., êsp . Chapter 13 "Education for Citizenship't. a st"{. f rThe 'op. Atkinsõn , Australian Outlook" cit. , pp. 8-11. 76 lle wondered if the scope and novelty of the 'rsocial laboratoryt might not have been exaggerated when one looked, for example, at Germany.

So Atkinson looked for a further explanation for what he discerned as distinctive in Australia. He concluded that what ray at the heart of

Australiars particularity - and what would also limit its future - was the degree to which the ordinary citizen identified with the state and had espoused political reform as the route to social betterrnent: Au-stralians probably go much further than any other people in r:egarding the State as being themselves in conmunity, and in believing that the powers and resourcc-s of the State are properly utilised when they are directed to the positive promotion of the welfare of the people as a whole. It is this view, conrbined with the hopefulness inspired by the possession of a rich young country, that makes Australian social legislation remarkab1e.46

Soon after his arrival, at the l\I.E.A. symposium which he organised on Tz,ade Unionism in Aus'bralia, he had been critical of the workersl reliance upon t}re state. Social advance in Australia was, in his vì-ew, to be attributecl to the attaining of political power by Labour but he warned that once Labour had gained power it was in danger of beconing atrophied:

In the last ten years especiat ly the workers have learned to lean upon the State to a degree altogether subversive of the finer splrit of positive effort and social idealism which characterised the earlier history of the Labour movement.4T

Like Lord Bryce, Atkinson regarded Australla as a case-study in advanced democracy but he feared it was also beginning to encounter dangers which could strangle the democratic process. The identification

46M. Atkinson, The Neu Social )nder" pp. 273-274" a 7I,1. Atkinson, I'The Relation of Trade Unionism to Co-operation and Co-partnership" in M. Atkinson (ed.) Trade Unionísm in Australia (Sydney 19ls) p. 22. 77. of democracy with the power and functions of government, the habit of fusing social community with the state, was, in the social theory to which he subscribed, a distorted and flawed notion on which to build the nel social order. His criticism was threefold. First he argued that represcntative politics, as he observed them in Australia, had failed to be truly responsive to the electorate. Secondly, he denounced the corruptive effect of state interventj-on on the'rpositive effortrrof citizens to develop their ovrn powers of self-help. Thirdly, hg pointed to conservative features of state enterprise and legislative reform which did not cssentially alter the relations of capitalist production. Ilis views on the status of politics in Australian life and on the role of Labour had been formed almost on imnediate impression. In July 1914, he wrote to Alfred Zimnern that he was repelled by the want of spiritual idealisn and the emphasis on rnaterial progress which he had detected in his new countty:

the emphasis everywhere on the sordidly economic aims of Trade Unionism and Labour Policy is enough to make me shudder.4B

For him the Labour Party exemplified much of what was wrong with the parliarnent-ary system itsclf. Tighter party organisation achieved by such clevices as the pledge, the caucus and pre-selection ba1lots, government by inner cabinet, and mediocrity, if not corruption, among its leaders all served to widen the gap between the people and govern- ment. He believed that Labour had gained power because it had success- ful1y interpreted the national aspirations but that its early idealism

48Athinson to A. Zimmern, B July 1914. Zimmern Papers, Box l, Bodleian Library,Oxford. 78. had now degenerated into a "huge and well-oiled machine" which had lost inspiration.49 Atkinson was not alone in his diagnosis of the state of politics in Australia. V.G. Childe also believed that Labour had

exhausted its momentum by the eve of the war and that the gradualist policies of Labour while being the result of pragmatic necessity in appealing to wide sections of the public were now those of a group of politicians pursuing power and self-interest. Childe wrote of

that state of soulless mechanism which seems to come over all labour activities on the hour of apparent triunph. so and of the estrangement of leaders from the rank and file. childets book, Hou Labouy Gouerns (L923) was considered for inclusion in the

W.E.A. Series but was rejected by the Federal Council of the W.E.A. as Itunsuitabl"rr.5l l{hi1e no reasons for this rejection are recorded,

childe's political views were probably too radical for endorsenent

under the shield of the W.E.A.

When Atkinson criticised the decline of politics and Labour, and the suffocating effect of party organisation on leadership, ideas and

creativity, his alternative was the exerc-.ise of government in a moïe pluralist structure by diverse, local, private or voluntary bocles. He argued that when the Australian workers turned to politics, their ener- gies became absorbed in political activity at the expense of other healthy social influences and expressíons of citizenship. lvhen they placed their faith in parliamentary legislation they ceased to realise,

if they ever had, that the political franchise was only one among a richer a9M. Atkinson, t'Australian Lessons for Blitish Labour" , Níneteenth Centung, Ygt. 98, August 1925, pp. \78-187. AIso The Neu SosiaL )rder, pp. 276-277. :YV.G. Childe, Hou Labouz, Gouerns (Melbourne, 1964) p. 181. 5lseventh Annual Report of the lV.E.A. in N.S.W., 1921. B1and papers, S.U.A. 79. arrray of freedoms - religious, econornic, moral and intellectual - and that democracy was embedded in a variety of hurnan activities and not just in governmental nachinery. A passage in The Neu Soctal }rder sumrned up what Atkinson missed in Australia:

The net-rvork of loca1 government in England and Scotland, the co-operative societies, the friendly societies, and trade unions, and a whole multitude of political, reformist, philanthropic and educational organisations have long offered great opportunities to the social energies of the average citizen. He has graduzrlly come to avail hinself of these in ways which have made Britain more likely to solve her problems than any nation accustomed to a highly centralised governrnent. 5 2

He noted that in Australia the intensity of political interest was accompanied by an extraordinary apathy in matters of loca1 government: no democracy can be either educated or successful which does not provide for the increasing application of the powers of the citizen to the development of the 1ocal comrnunity of which he is part.53

For the two Directors imported from the English W.E.A., Atkinson and Fleaton, one of the prominent expressions of local commrnity in their own lives had been the Co-operative movement. For them it embodied positive social effort of the kind which they both believed was needed to revitalise the Australian Labour movement and rescue it from íts negative drift. This was the message Atkinson gave to the trade unions in his major address at the Conference of 1915. Surveying the relation of trade unionisrn to co-operation and co-partnership, he recognised how litt1e impact these movements had made on Australian development but he insisted on the value of the voluntarist spirit

52U. Attinson, Ihe Neu SociaL Order, p. I2S. sslbid. p. 275 anð, t'The Australian Ouilook" op. ci,t. p. 18 80 which anirnated them.54 Atkinson defined Co-operation broadly as including forms of production which dispensed with capitalistic orvner- ship and control. This could cover a wide range of industrial arrange- ments from smal1 workshops to the larger schenes proposed by the guild socialists. Atkinsonfs attraction to the general principles of v guild socialism was consistent with his distrust of state socialisrn on the one hand and syndicalism or revolutionary socialism on the other. The British compromise developed in Oraget s NatiortrtL GuiLds and G.D.H. Colefs SeLf-GoDernment in Industry appealed to those W.E.A. intellectuals who could see beyond the palliatives achieved by state action and trade unionisrn to a new industrial system based on the self-determining and co-operative enterprise of the producers. I'Industrial democracyil thus becane one of the main themes of the l,\/.E.A. in the post-war years.

Under the auspices of the Victori-an Railways Union, at the end of

1918, Atkinson delivered a series of lectures which atternpted to apply British experi-ments in industrial clernocracy to Australian state enter- prise. lle instructed the 'railway unionists in the basic guild socialist theory: that manrs econornic freedon rvas not guaranteecl by his political rights and that it was essentiaL to apply to industry the same principles of liberty and democracy which applied in politics: the most vital problen now confronting the worker conceïns the wage system and its relation to the application of democratic control to inclustTy.55

5al,l . Atkinson, I'The Relation of Trade Unionism to Co-operation and Co-partncrship'r op. cit. and Ir4. Atkinson, Co-operation and SocòaL Reconsty,uct,Lon, lecture to the First Consumers Australian Co-operative Congress, April 1920 (Sydney 1920), passim. This point is discussed further lvith regard to Heaton in Chapter Ten. 55t,t . ¡.tkinson, rtstate Socialism and the l{age System't in IndustriaL Democracy in State Enterprises, p. 18. 81.

Evcn under the collective or nationalised state, he reninded them, the wage-system still prevailed and there hias no necessary measure of self-government. While the W.E.A. group approved the guild socialist attempt to plan a reconstruction of the industrial state in a way which would satisfy the demands of the producer and yet pîotect the consurner from exploitation, none of them looked for the immediate realisation of guild socialist schemes. Atkinson shared the di-fficulties they had with the idea of an industrial parlianent and, in the end, upheld the sovereignty and authority of the elected parliament. He also had profound reservations about the abilities and readiness of either the employers or the workers to accomplish industrial denocracy in the near future. He found employers lacking in the ideal of "social servicetr and the average worker too apathetic and i11-equipped to

assume his share of responsì-bility. He regarded the democratic

election of those who would control industry with dismay: Popular election of our political leaders has yielded us but indifferent results. How much worse would it be to rely upon the vote of the wo::kers to give us the economic and administrative experts essential to the proper control of industry?56

It was possible, Atkinson feared, to carry denocracy to extremes. In the face of such a prospect he resolved the problern into a less threatening question - how to j-ntroduce the worker gradually into a share in the control of enterprises? Inclustrial democracy came to

mean a modífied process of worker participation which depended once

more on the education of the worker. The scheme which as yet best

approximated this solution was the l\/hitley idea and Atkinson suggested

56M. Atkinson, t'Towards Industrial Dernocracyrr in fnd,ustv'iaL Democra,cA i,n State Enterpr'íses, p. 46. 82. alì adaptation of the British models to Australian industry, making allowances for Australian features such as the arbitration system, the degree of state enterprise and the power of the trade unions. He out- lined for the railway workers the structure devised for the National

Union of Railwaymen in England. ltrorkshop committees would elect representatives to district councils which, in turn, would elect members to a supervening Industrial Board on which would also sit the nominees of the state railway comrnissioners. Atkinson proposed an industrial structure controlled by a combination of interests: the state, through the cornmissioner and his representatives, would protect the consumer while the worker, or proclucer, had a voice on the industrial council.57

Such a set of arrangernents, he contended, might have averted the Railway strike of 1917; it might also be superior to the current mechanisms for inclustrial arbitration. hrhile he applauded the genuine progressive gains of arbitration, he criticised the system as one which perpetuated conflict:

How can we expect industrial peace from a form of inclustrial strategy that never contemplates the transforrnation of the contending armies into a co-opeïative association. 5 B

IIis answer was to wi dcn thc functions of Wages Boards into an Australian Industrial Board which would ultimately effect a triple co-operative control of industry, balancing the interests of the state, the ernployer and the worker.59 Thus the message of the lrl .E.A., as articulated by Atkinson, challenged the basic pivots of the Australian industrial system - the arbitration court, the Labour Party and trade unionism itself. *****

s7 fui.d., pp. s7-73. 5Bl'1. Rtkinson, The Neu SociaL Ord.er,, pp. 226-227. sg rb¿d., pp . 249-250 . 83

An analysis of Atkinsonrs ideas reveals his struggle to reconcile his dedication to the cause of worker education with his personal fear of their victory and his antipathy to the masses. It has been suggested that one of the reasons he failed was because neither the workers nor his colleagues trusted his loyalty to the 'rl4rrr in the lV.E.A.60 It was not surprising that his blend of didactic paternalism, moral imperatives and co-operative idealism did little to endear him to the Australian worker but his first open breach with organised Labour occurred during

the conscription crisis, when Atkinson supported conscription. When the Universal Service League began in Sydney in Septernber 1915, it released a manifesto urging conscription instead of voluntary service.

The chairman of the Sydney Labour Councj-l, opposing the move, drew attcntion to the fact that Meredith Atkinson had been elected to the

executive committee of the U.S.L. ¡ut had not availed himself of an opportunity to address the delegates of the Labour Council on the matter.6l

At th¿rt point the Sydney Labour Council opposed any conscription of nen

that did not involve conscription of wealth, so that Atkinson appeared

as the ally of capitalist forces betraying the worker into war. Two

anti-conscription unions clisaffiliated from the W.E.A. in 1916 to be followed the next year by .seventeen nore, incJ.uding the powerful Australian Workers Únion and the Federated Engine lJrivers. Temporarily,

the Labour Council withdrew its support.62 Tl're trade union backlash

provoked a crisis within the councils of the lV"E.A.: Stewart, Heaton

and Portus were arìong those opposed to conscription and were angry at

60Fred Alexander to H. Bourke, 30 May 1976. Alexander was an under- graduate at the University of Melbourne during Atkinson's tine there. 6 rDaiLy TeLegraph, Sydney, 1 October 1915. 6 2n. nrhitelock , rhe Gneat Ty,a&ition, pp. 184-lBS . 84. the threat Atkinson posed to carefully built-up relations with the unions. 0n the other hand, in this instance, Atkinson had aligned himself with powerful university figures in the U.S.L., such as Edgeworth

David and Mungo N{acCallum, and the W.E.A. needed also to preserve good relations with the university as we11. Finally, David Stewart inserted an official disclaimer in the Sydney papers, disassociating the W.E.A., as a non-partisan body, fron Atkinsonrs views, but upholding his right as a private citizen to support any public cause.63 But much of the early dynanic had been lost and, in the face of increasing radicalisrn in the unions as the War progressed, it was never regained.

Atkinsonts ambivalence towards the working-class and his personal activities presented a continuing problen within the W.E.A. Intellect- ually, Herbert Heaton in Adelaide was his main adversary while, instit- utionally within the W.E.A., both the secretary in Victoria, S.D.

Thompson and his N.S.lt/. counterpart, Stewart, mistrusted hirn. The reception of The Neu Social )rder among Atkinsonrs colleagues illustrated the tensions between them. When the Federal Council of the W.E.A. in

Australia planned the Series, Elton Mayo's Democracy and Ez.eedom was to be the first published under Atkinsonrs general editorship and Heatonfs

Modey,n EconomLc Histoz,y u/as approved as the next tit1e. The appearance of Atkinsonrs own book, The Neu SociaL Order, came as a surprise. It had been authorised by himself and carried a panoply of titles on its front page: Director of Tutorial Classes and Member of the Professor- ial Board, University of Melbourne, Presi.dent of the Workerst Educational

Association of Australia. On receipt of his copy, Heaton immediately

63naily TeLegnaph, 21 September 1915. See also G.V. Portus, HappA Highuays and E.lt{. Higgins, Dauid Steuay,t and the W.E.A. B5 wired Atkinson to hold up distribution of the book until a notice could be insertecl on the title page pointing out that the book expressed the authorrs own views and not those of the W.E.A, Heaton was most concerned lest I'the movement as a whole be saddted with Atkinsonts views'r and he objected to his arrogation of the title of 'rPresident, of a body which in fact did not exist. There was no W.E.A. of Australia, only a Federal council of state Directors and Secretaries.64 portus also disliked the reference to professorial status:

lf Atkinson does this sort of thing, he cannot expect to Live down the charge that he has been angling for this title ever since he came to Aust_ralia.b5

He was concerned that Atkinson should have sole control over what was published, fearing that he would publish too readily and that his trbusiness \^/ays are so casualrr.

lleatonrs nai-n quarrel with the book was firstly its scope, and secondly, with the attitudes he believecl informed it. It had been one of the contentions of the 1918 sydney university inquiry into the W.E.A. tltat the acadernic standards of the tutorial classes fe1l far short of those claimed for them. Heaton felt that Atkinsonrs text would not dispel this suspicion. He reminded Atkinson that tutorial classes were supposed to spend three years on one branch of knowledge but the range of this 'rconvenient textrt, over economics, sociology, political science and international relations, was no more than a cursory survey.66 The reviewer in the Austv,aLian HigLu,tay (possibly

Heaton) referred to it as a catalogue of rran inchoate mass of subjectsn and warned against its use with beginning students:

64f{. Heaton to D.B. Copland, 11 April 1919. Copland papers, N.L.A. 6sG.v. Portus to Heatoñ, 14 April 1919. Heaton-papers,-university of Minnesota. 66Heaton to Copland, 11 April I9L9, op. cit. 86.

Let us not do anything to drive down our academic standards of instruction, which professes to be a university one.67

copland in Hobart thought the book did deal with problems that were pressing at the end of the \,Var and that he would find it helpful in

his classes on post-war Reconstruction;68 Witherby in Queensland thoroughly disagreed with the stance of the book but said he would prob- ably recommend it,69 while Portus in Sydney found its interdisciplin-

ary scope suited to the nature of the study of the r?social problem" which the tutorial classes embarked on after the Var. He agreed that the book suggested survey rather than intensive study of a subject

but, recalling the broad range of classes across N.S.W., he noted

real i sti ca1 1y,

it is alright to proclaim in syllabuses that we study subjects intensively but as a natter of fact we donrt. IVe are^prone to range broadly without vcry much depth. /u

The Present post-lr/ar situation compellecl the study of so nany inter- related problems in all the social sciences that, although Atkinsonrs book was rrtoo viewyrr and rrnot facty" enough, Portus conceded its relevance to tutorial class courses.

Heatonfs telegrarn to Atkinson had included the words rrtone almost

antagonistic workers" and, in a subsequent letter, he accused Atkinson

of dedicating his book to the worker but of talking in it not to the worker but to an arm-chair audience of comfortable middle-class people r ntt/insonrs attitude to rrall that labour is thinkingil would, he said, damn the book in the eyes of the wage-earner and also give force to those

GTReview of The Neu SociaL Order, AustraLíqn Highuay, Vol. 1, no. 3, Iilay 1919, pp. 14-15. buCopland to Atkinson, 26 April 1919. Copland Papers. 9?t.C. lVitherby to l-leaton, t2 April 1919. Ileaton Papers. /uPortrrs to Atkinson, 14 April 1919. Heaton Papers. 87. who attacked the It/.E.4. for its conservatisrn, a point with which Witherby also agreed. l{eaton allowed that the sections on internationa]. affairs were acceptable, if scanty, but he aimed his greatest criticism at the whole tone of the economic parts of the book:

You dismiss the class-war, the workerst objectives and general point of view far too contemptuously, with the implication that if only the worker was a 1itt1e better educated he would know better than to think or want such things. Your remedies propo-sed create not a nelv social order, but simply the o1d one patched up.71 Atkinson disrni-sscd [{eatonrs criticisrn as bias and refused to enter into controvery, renarking

whether nry bourgeois opinions or your proletarianism do the W. E.A. rnore harm, I will not venture to say.72

Heatonts "proletarianil bias was also affronted by Atkinsonrs alliance with conservative thinking especially on Labour matters. Atkinsonrs membership of the Round TabLe grolrp and his articles in that journal on Labour issues seemed further proof to Heaton of his point. Âtkinson wrote, wholly or in part, at least three articles for tl'te Round Table: one on industrial unr:est in 1916, one on the railways strike in 1917 and one on the O.B.U. in 1919.73 Ileaton told Alfred

Zimmern, one of the influential members of the London circle, of his dissatisfaction with the way the Rottnd TabLe presented Australian Labour:

whatever may be the exact significance of the title of the cluarterly, most people assume that the Round Table tries to get men of quite different shades of opinion, and that the articles published are therefore the product of such Round Table discussion. IVhatever may be the case in the other dominions, the Round Table groups in Australia are far from being complete circles,

1¡Heaton 1-o Ahk¡nsoô, it Aþnì\ ts¡Y. t{ea l-,cn ?aPers T2Atkinron to Heaton, 15 April 1919. Copy in Copland Papers. T3Rotutd Table, December 1916; l,{arch 1918; September 1919. Although collective authorship was the pattern for many of the articles in the Round Table, large sections of the above are reproduced in Atkinsonfs other wri tings 88.

and the table is scarcely even a semi-circle.74 tle singled out, as exanples, the articles on conscription in 1916 and the one on the railway strike of 1917. The first, he said, owed nothing to the views of anti-conscriptíonists, despite their opinion prevailing in the referenda, and the second showed little evidence of having been submitted for any Labour scrutiny and comment. If the Round. Table articles were to be fair statement then they must be subnitted for thc criticisn of men who-se views differedrrfron that hefd by apparently the whole of the members of the Round Table groupsr'. When Atkinson also contributed an article to Ambrose Pratt t s Australian Tariff Hand- book in 1919, it was only further illustration to l-leaton of his sympathy with the protection ofrrthe interests of big businessrr. Heaton viewed the book as propagandist and he and Copland contemplated a rejoincler but decided it would be too hard to get it published.Ts

Relations continued to deteriorate between Atkinson and his W.E.A. colleagues until Atkinson applied for leave to return to England in 1921. l{hen D.B. Copland replaced Atkinson as the President of the Federal

Council of the W.E.A., he was anxious to alert R.ll. Tawney and the English parent body to the sort of account Atkinson mi-ght give of the i\l,E.A. in Australia. Copland and S.D. Thompson asked Heaton to write to Tawney injecting a note of realism into what they suspected would be glowing and self-congratulatory reports. Heaton drafted a letter

T4Heaton to Zj-mmern, 13 June 1920. Zimmern Letters, MS 3731 N.L.A. Henry Bournes Higgins also complained to Lionel Curtis of an article on compulsory arbitration being "flagrantly bad" and "bri.mming with partisan prejudice", based on information fron papers like the Angus and on the trutterance of speakers of the reactionary attitudet'. Iliggins to Curtis, 14 .Iuly 1923. Iliggins Papers MS \057/497, N.L.A. TSlleaton to Copllncl, 1 September 1919. Copland Papers. The reference is to lt'l . Atkin-son, "The Leading Principles of Protection'r in Ambrose Pratt (ecl.), The Austv.alian Tarif'f llandbook, (Melbourne 1919) pp. 17-21. 89 for their comment which warned Tawney that Atkinson was given to a certain rrexuberance of imagery'? and a scorn for r?meticulous accuracy in things statisticalt'so that he should accept Atkinsonrs version of the Australian lrl.E.A. with the utnost reserve.T6 Copland and Thompson encouraged an even stronger note in the final letter. Heaton added that in every state the IV.E.A. had to live down thehostility to the movement engendered by Atkinson's association with rrsections of the public which have no affection for the wage-earnerrr. He continued Long ago Atkinson lost the leadership, official or unofficial, of the Association which he had in the ea'rly days. Since that tine he has sulked in his tent, given no assistance to the federal organisation, contributed not a single article to The Hi,ghuay (although writing voluminousÌy for "capitalist" papers) describing hinself as Head of the Department of Sociology (whích does not exist) but seldon referrì.ng-to himself as the Director of Tutorial Classes. / / Ileaton was a shade reluctant to mail this joint letter under his signature until Atkinson passed through Port Adelaide en route to

London and snubbed an invitation to ,come down to the university from the ship to visit hin. Heaton decided to enjoy the irony of dispatching the letter on the same boat:

I got a letter off to Tawney by the "Omarrr and so the Rajah is travelling home sitting on top of it at the present moment.78

Tawneyrs tactful reply spoke of similar problems in England since Mansbricìgers retirement. I{ansbridge and his successor were engaged in a personal rivalry over the direction of the lt/.E.A., Mansbridge "beíng extrenely frightened of anything which suggests a close connection with

T6Heaton to Copland, 2 August lg2l. Copland Papers. TT{eaton to R.H. Tawney, August 1921 Copy in Copland Papers. T8Heaton to Copland, 25 August Lg2'J,, Copland Papers. 90. l'rl)our". /r) 'l'lrc dilelnm¿r of late Victorj¿ìn paternalists Iike Atkinson and I'fansbridge had been sharpened every'where in the post-\dar wor1d.

Heaton had told Tawney that it was commonly accepted in ln/.E.A. circles that Atkinson would prefer to leave the lv.E.A. for a safe university post but a nonth before he was due to return from England early in 7922 Atkinson resigned fron both the lV.E.A. and the university. tll am resigning'' he inforned the university "to become the Editor and

Proprieto'r of Reuieu of Reuieus in Melbourne'r which he had bought on

Stead's death.B0 The unj-versity advised that Professor Atkinson had rrto left take up much more remunerative literary work in the commercial world"'BI He left behind a Departrnent that had been entangled in dispute over such matters as the appointment of an Assistant-Director and over the relative powers and jurisdiction of Atkinson and s.D. Thompson, who was both the secretary to the W.E.A. in Victoria ancl to the universityrs Joint committee. In \924, and again in rg27, the university council had to conduct ì nquiries into the affairs of the University Extension Board which were occasioned by the problems which continued to fester lretween the Director and the w.E.A. In 1927, ,J.8. Brigden,professor of economics in Ilobart and president of the Federal Council of the W.E.A., traced the malady in Victoría to Atkinsonrs legacy. Atkinsonfs reasy- going, rnethods of administration had been "devised to relieve himself of certain drudgeryrr and the result hacl been that there weïe no clear lines of demarcation between the duties of the Director and that of

TgTawney to lleaton, l0 October 1921. Ileaton papers. sOAtkinson to the chancellor, 1 January rg22, Mãlbourne university Registry Fíles \922/36. B lRegistrar, university of Nfelbourne, to the secretary of the Appoint- ments Board, Oxford University, 15 Nfay 1922. University of lr{e16ourne Registry Files 1922/435. 91 the W.E.Â. whose secretary had then begurt to take on executive functions that werc not properly his.B2

Atkinson had also earned a reputation for dubious financial dealing, for cultivating his social popularity while sicle-stepping the burdens of of€ice, and for appreciating to the full the 'rperks" of status.B3 Yet, for his part, his position in the university had little security. At first he was appointed for three years and in 1920 this was extended for a further twelve months but he had earlier written to the Chancellor asking for more certain tenure pointì-ng out that he was, by then, thirty-seven. 84 His venture into business in a precarj-ous enterprise called Quick Gears (in which he unhappily involved the university) and his advent into crusading journalism in Steadts Reuieu both fai1ed.85 Th" articles he wrote, however, in his last years in

82J .9. Brigden, l"lemo on Relations between the University and the W.E.A. in Victoria, 25 Nlay 1927. Copland Papers. This matter is further discussed in Chapter Seven. B3F. Alexander to H. Bourke, op. cit" 84Minutes of the Council, University of lilelbourne, 20 December 1916, refer to tenure "from year to yeartt. In 1918, Atkinsonrs terrn was extended to three years. On 30 September 1920, the Chancellor asked the government for a further three year terrn (Fi1es 1920/437). Atkinson wrote to the Chancellor asking for more security (Files 1920/ 444) and the Minutes of the Council, 13 December 1920, record that his term was extended for twelve months. B5l,linutes of the Counci 1, lJnj-versity of NIelbourne, 5 Decernber 1921, report the receipt of scrip for 500 futly paid shares in the Quick Gears Ltd donated by Atkinson and others. F. Alexander to H. Bourke, op. cit., recalls that Atkj-nson "felI a vjctim (other critics use a harsher worcl) for some invention pronoters connected with what I recall as'rQuick Gears" a miraculous new invention. He was encouraged to regard himself as a heaven sent company promoter and when he went to London he was cornmissioned to selI the invention to British interests (I saw sonething of this on the voyage to the U.K. and while he remained in London. Indeed, I persuaded my father to put some money into the company as did some University of lt{elbourne colleagues who subsequently denounced I'1.4. for swindling them). According to trV. Osmond, "I'leredith Atkinson't , A.D.B. , op, cit. , Atkinson and his co-directors hrere sued in the Supreme Court for fraudulent misrepresentation but were acquittecl in 1924. 92.

Australia stil1 sholed his continued interest in placing Australia in a world perspective and in bringing international discussion into the Australian scene. In 1921 he had visited Russia at the instance of the 'rSave the Children Fundrr to investigate the conditions of the famine and relief so he was able to publish first-hand accounts of Bolshevisn in practice.86 He continued to support the League of

Nations, to promote the ideal of a British Conmonwealth and to watch Australiars growing role in the Pacific.BT The parochialism of Australia ancl the I'continued remoteness of the Australian mind fron participation ilr worlcl affairsrr8B ro, a state which he had genuinely, along with his other W.E.A. colleagues, sought to modify.

In December 1924, Steadts Reuieu was acquired by Reviews Ltd. and in the following May, Atkinson left Australia for Europe, the Near and Far East and America, again under the auspices of the "Save the Children and Armenian Relief Fund". Stead's Reuíeu wished him success in the cause rvith rvhich he was now associated.B9 Returning to England, he resuned lectures in economics for the cambridge Board of Extra- Itlura I stuclies and he wrote back 'rour London Letterrr to each issue of

Steadts in Austr¿rlia. He also became titerary secretary to the New

Flealth Society holding this post until his sudden death in N{ay 1929,

B6See IV. Atkinson, t'Soviet Russia and the Femine'r , Nineteenth Centurg, vo1. 91, January-June 1922, pp. 603-612; "with the Kemalists in Moscowlt, Steadts Reùíet), 30 September 1922; "Russian Memoriestt, Steadts Reuian, 28 0ctober 1922.. BTSee M. Atkinson, "The Machinery of the League of Nationsr?and'rThe International Spirit" in FI. I{eaton (ed.) The League of Nations (Adelaide 1918) ; rf The tr{ashlngton Conferencetr, Ninel;eenth Century, Vo1. 90, July-Decernber 1921, pp.941-949; "Empire - or Comnonwealth?tt, Stead,s Reuiea, 22 \larch 1924, pp. 28-29. B Bltl . Rtkinson, "Empire -- or Commonwealth?rr, op. eit. , p. 29 . B9steadts Reuieu¡, 15 De."mber 1924 ancl 5 June 1925. 93.

¡Ìt thc:ìgc ()f forty-fivc.90 lt was a satl connent c¡n Atkinsonrs Australian career that although the subsequent reniniscences of his W.E.A. colleagues always conceded, if somewhat anbiguously, the missionary zeal and energy which he threw into the many causes he es- poused, tlne Austv'aLian Highuay, official journal of the l{r.E.A. he had founded, did not even carry a notice of his death.

*ìt***

90W. Osnond, I'Meredith Atkinsonrr , op. cít. and Obituary, The Times' London, 16 May L929. This obituary contains some inaccuracies, arnong them the assertion that Atkinson held the chair of econonics at the University of lvle lbourne, CHAPTER 4, Gornet Vere Portus: "Controversiol Educotion" 94

At the'end of I9I7, when li{eredith Atkinson left the University of Sydney for Melbourne, he was succeedecl as Director of Tutorial

Classes by Garnet Vere Portus. Portus was appointed jointly to a lectureship in economic history under R.F. Irvine and was assisted in his tutorial class duties by Francis Armand Bland, also a lecturer in public administration. Together Portus and Bland presided over the novement in N.S.W. and were central figures in the Australian W.E.A. until 1934 when Portus accepted the chair of history and politics at the University of Adelaide, which had been vacated by W.K. Hancock, and Bland was appointed to the foundation chair of public administration at the University of Sydney. Their lifelong involvement in extra- mural education encled j-n both cases only with their deaths.

A study of Portusr early career as Director of Tutorial Classes and of his intellectual ambience reveals some of the central concerns which engaged the W.E.A. intellectuals. There was the assertion of the power of education not only to liberate the personality and assure the individual of greater cornmand over his world but also, by its rationality and objectivity, to transcend class conflict. There was the need to assinilate into their rather uneasy liberal, Christian framework, wj.th all its consciousness of the urgency of social reforrn, the challenge of l4arxist socialist theory. There was also the conviction, born of the experience of the Great'l{ar, that Aust'ralía must corne to terrns with the new spirit of internationalisrn and search out her own relations with the wider world of the Empire and the Pacific. Portus addressed all these issues: he was forced by his institutional role as Director to be an apologist for the W.E.A. vision of the alliance between labour and learning. As both an ordained minister of the

Church of England and one of the pioneers of economic history in 95.

Australja hc unclertook his own personal journey into Marxisn. As an

Australian nember of both the Ror-rrd Table and the League of Nations

Union, he became a propagandist for the cause of international peace and later for the study of Australiars international relations. The title and tenor of his autobiography, HappU Highuags, reflects a serenity and congeniality for which he was personally appreciated by his colleagues, although some may find it too amiable and tolerant in humour to yield up a truly critical account of his experience. Portusl deceptively simple and unassuming sty1e, however, should not detract from the range and energy he displayed as a teacher and an intellectual during the post-war years in Sydney.

Portus was born ín Morpeth in I'l .S.W. in 1883, the son of a shipping agent and general manager to the Newcastle Steamship Co. After an education at lt{aitland High School, he had qualified through the Public Service Board for a position in the N.S.W. Department of

It{ines in 1900. After two years, he became interested in the Anglican ministry, having already a brother who was a curate in the Church in Newcastle. Assisted financially by the Church, he was able to attend

Sydney University and live at St. Paul's College. In 1907 a Rhodes

Scholarshlp took him to New College, Oxford, where he studied history and econonics with his tutor, H.A.L. Fisher, later minister for education in Lloyd Georgets government, He continued his preparation for the rninistry, joining the Cirristian Social Union to explore social issues in the light of Christian teaching. In all, he described his English peri-od as an experience which inclined him to a leftist liberal attitude in politics and confirmed a tendency to modernism in ny ieligious views.I

lG.V. Portus, HappA Highuays, (Melbourne, 1955), p. 120. I have relied on this autobiography for the basic biographical information in this chapter. 9(r.

Others whose influence had led him to find liberal democracy a rrmost inspiriting crecclrÌ incluclcd his teachers at Sydney University, Francis Anderson, G.A. l{ood, R.F. Irvine and Edgeworth David. It was Anderson who attracted him most with his progressive pedagogical nethods encouraging discussion and discoveTy, and with his synthetic approach to knowledge. In an era before the specialisation of fields of learning, Anderson ranged beyond the nandate of his chair in logic, ethics and metaphysics to psychology,ed.ucation and some economics; before Andersonrs reti,rement the-se latter disciplines had been recognised by the foundation of separate chairs at Sydney.2 On the other hand, his professor of history, George ArnoId Wood, stuck to conventional notions of history, teaching English history with some excursions to the American and French revolutions and to Ireland. Portus regretted that Wood was deflected from writing about conternporary Australia, in preferring to return in his work to the Diseouet'g of Aus'traLia (1922): I have always regretted that l\rood did not leave this subject to a lesser pen and give us an aloof and sympathetic account of the socj-a1 and political development of his adopted country.3 The distlnction implied between the two professors, Anderson and Wood, reflected Portus' own inteLlectual directions and preferences. Economic history was his clesignated field while his vocation to worker education involved hin in teaching labour history and in analysis of contemporary social and political issues, towards which Wood in his history courses did not extend. W.G.K. Dttncan, an undergraduate in the post-war years experienced the difference: attracted to the current guild socialist fashion which then permeated the student Public Questions Society,

2rbíd., pp 56-67 . 3rb¿d., p 62. 97.

Duncan recalled his enthusiastic presentation of the message of G.D.H.

Colc in an essay to C.A. Wood. For a moÌ:c sympathetic and informed reading of the essay, Wood passed it on to the younger Portus, thus initiating a friendship and influence which eventually led Duncan to the London School of Economics to study Sociology with L.T. Hobhouse.4 Duncan followed Portusr footsteps twice, as Director of Tutorial classes in sydney and later to the chair of history and political science at the llniversity of Adelaide.

Portus was irnpressed with the social policies of Asquith and Lloyd George but the collapse of pre-llar tiberal hopes effected by the out- break of war was also accompanied for him by a shaking of religious certainties. He submitted his thesis for a B.Litt. at Oxford under the title Caritas Anglicana, an historical inquiry into the religious and philanthropic societies in England between L678 and 1740, and then returned home to the Labour state of N.S.W. in 191I.s Ordained the previous year, he took up a post as a country parson in the mining area of Cessnock where he was able to observe the econonics of industry from close range and where he learned a valuable lesson about class relations - "neither side knows the other except as antagonist'r. In pre-\r/ar Australia, however, Portus did not find the same grím Marxism which confronted the W.E.A. after the war. In I9I2, he clained it was the theoretical problens of Marxian econornics that were debated, whereas, on his return to Cessnock in 1920 to inspect tutorial classes, he believed the miners to be rnoved more by Marxian

aW.C.f. Duncan to H. Bourke: ínterview, 11 August 1976. sc.v. Portus, Canitas Anglícana. An Histor+cal fnquiry into those Religious and PhiLanthnopical Societies that FLouy,ished in EngLand bett¡een the Years 1678 md 1740, (London I9I2). 98.

sociology.6 Nor, in pre-\.Var Cessnock, did he elicit much response to his offer to enlighten the ninerst unions about the "deeper social significanceil of the Co-operative movement. They did participate in

consumer Co-operation but their interest was more in the dividends

than j-n the principles.T Nevertheless, the mission to the miners and

its promotion of movements like Co-operation which skirted the class i-ssue, proved an endurlng influence on Portus as he withdrew from the active ministry because of his doctrinal difficulties and moved towards

the new secular evangelism of worker education. After a year in

Adelaide in 1914, teaching history and English as a replacement for

Professor G.C. Henderson, he returned to Sydney to join another o1d teacher, Professor J.T. Wilson, in the business of Military Censorship. During his stay in Adelaide, however, Portus had net Meredith Atkinson

who awakened his interest in the l\l.E.A. idea. In 1917, he responded to Atkinsonrs invitation to be his Assistant but when Atkinson left Sydney, Portus found himself j-n charge of the whole operation.B *****

Within months of assuming his new position Portus was called upon to defend the W.E.A. - Tutorial Class alliance against criticism fron within the university. In }4ay 1918, he and Professor Francis Anderson,

chairman of the Joint Cornmittee, were summoned before an inquiry of the Senate into the general administration and performance of the Departnent of Tutorial Classes. The indictrnent brought against them by one of their chief critics, Professor Mungo MacCallum, concerned the

6G.V. Portus, HappA Highaays, p. 154. 7 ft¿d., PP. 154- 155 . óftid., pp. 162-169. 99. level of academic distinction attained by the tutors of the W.E.A. classes and study circles, the standards of the teaching, the payment of their tutors compared to that of the university extension lecturers and the status of the department itself in relation to the government of the university. There was also an assertion that the low proportion of manual workers in the W.E.A. classes vitiated the airns of the original movement and so rendered the Australian mission to the workers insignificant beside its English cotrrterpart.9 While there was Iittle doubt that much of the criticism was a retrospective attack on it{eredith Atkinson, the questions raised did neet head on the problerns involved in attempts by the university to reach the worker especially in the widespread rural areas that the movement aspired to service.

There had been a pragmatic adaptation by Portus and Bland of the lofty Mansbridge idealism to the realities of the N.S.W. clientele in the form of preparatory classes introduced to bridge the gaps in the

'thighwayil of education for many workers. This was judged by MacCallum and his supporters to be a concession which sullied the universityrs standards and one which ought more properly to be conducted by other bodies such as the Education Department.l0 Peter Board rallied to the support of Portus and the W.E.A.:

Should the unlvcrsity concern itself only with such sections of the work as can be carried to a standard corresponding to that reachecl in an Arts or Econonics degree course? Or on the other hand is it the concern of the university to help the student wherever it can reach him to study seriously whatever will help hin to a more intelligent citizenshiptll

gthe Registrar, H. Barff, to Francis Anderson, Chairnan of the Joint Conmittee, in the files of F.A. Bland held in the Department of Adult Education, University of Sydney. These files are not catalogued in any way. loFrancis Anderson to the Registrar, H. Barff, 18 July 1918. Bland Fi 1es, D.A.E. , Sydney. lIPeter Board to H. Barff, 6 May 1918, Bland Files, D.A.E., Sydney. 100

Board argued strongly that the turiversity rnust maintain its joint venture with the W.E.A. as the only body through which the educational aspirations of the workers were expressed. He disagreed that only

Honours graduates could be effective tutors and warned that the comrnunity would look elsewhere for its teachers if the university continued to define itself so narrowly. The veiled reference was to the rival worker education offered by the Labour colleges. He spoke of the clanage already done by the split over conscription: it is well-known that the political turrnoil through which labour organisations have been passing has cut across the interests of the W.E.A. and the vì_gour of the W.E.A. today in the face of the political issues that have intervened in its history is arnple evidence of a genuine desíre on the part of manual workers for the assistance that the university can give.12

Bland and Portus stated that education was not a gift fron the goodness of the university but a right of people and they defended their employment of Pass graduates as tutors when a 'first or even a third class man" was not avail¿rble on the grounds that it was better to employ a tutor of lower grade than to leave the denand unsatisfied.l3

It{accalltrm proposed to alter the Joint committee and to place it under the university Extension Board, thereby interposing another committee between it and direct access to the university senate. Such rnoves were intended to dilute the influence of the w.E.A. on the Joint Committee and to weaken the autonomy of the departrnent as a whole. It was a schene which threatened to emasculate the essential lV.E.A. concept and one which was firmly opposed by another champion of the Mansbrídge callse, A.B. Piddington. The very essence of the movement wrote

rz- tbid. See also Happa Highaays, pp. 175-178. 1 3F .4. Bland to H.C.L. Anderson, 16 July 1918, Btand Files, D.A.E., Sydney. 101

Piddington (from the Inter-State Comnission) would be jeopardised i the equal share of workers and university nen in the administrative self-govercnment of the classes was fractured. Yet another proposal to dernote the status of Portus to that of an Organising Secretary and

Chief Tutor uras scorned by Piddington as rrdisdainfulr'. The working

classes would interpret the whole scheme asrrevidence that they are not to be trustedrt and would not accept the "paltry role'r of merely assisting in the management of their own classes rather than sharing a dual responsibility for then. Piddington accused the university of

wanting to cut off the lesser 1evels of scholastic effort - the more elementary bridging classes - because it lacked concern for the working class students 'rin this humble stage of effort". 14 Ranged behind

Piddington, Anderson and Portus, were other university figures such as

Alexander lt'lackie and P . R. Col e from education, H .T . Love1l and Bernard Muscio from psychology, R.F. Irvine from economics - all social scient- ists whose fields the !V.E.A. promoted and who had thernselves offered

courses. I 5

The "administrative mistakes'r made under the previous director, Atkinson, were aclmitteci by all: as Bland remarked, the "offensiverr on the departrnent was inspired nore by personal animosity than by a ttreal

critical interest in educatiot"t.rrl6 On the broader, more philosophical

issues, Portus and his adherents were not prepared to concede. The definition of rrrnanual worker'r was a further point contested: Portus claimed that an analysis of student occupatiors revealed that more than

1aA.B. Picldington to the Chancellor, Sir W. Cul1en, 16 August 1918, Bland Fi1es, D.A.E., Sydney lSMemoranclum to the Chancellor frorn several rnembers of the Staff of tþe Sydney University, Bland Files, D.A.E., Sydney 16F.4. Bland to Ir{. Atkinson , 2 May 1918. Bland Fi1es, D.A.E. , Sydney L02 half fe11 into this category, although no sociological theory of occupation was advanced to support this clain. He protested that the terntrurorkerrrshould exclude those who did not work only with their hands; the term rfwage-earnerrr was a more useful one. In reality, students rnust be taken wherever they could be found,IT Anderson developed Portust stand, arguing that tutorial classes were not meant for trthe labou::er of the academic inaginationrr but for the workers who conprised the great majority of the adult population of N.S.W. He protested against condoning further class distinction by trying to separate labourers out from the majority of workers.lB

The weight of influential members of the tlniversity Senate in Board and Piddington and the degree of support nustered behind Portus succeeded in preserving the original arrangements of the Tutorial Class departrnent" Having spent much of the year exorcising the grievances against their predecessor within the university, Portus and Bland had sti-1l to defend their operation from attacks mounted on the left of the

1¿rbour lnovcment. From the conscrip.tion crises through the next decade there was pressure on the affiliated boclies which conrprised the W.E.A. to sever links with the university and to pursue "working class econornics and working-c1ass sociology" in Labour CoIleges and along the lines urged by the London Plebs League. The radical socialist critics of the W.E.A. alliance with the university charged that the r¡riversity was a bourgeois institution purveying doctrines which upheld capitalist society - in short, 'rcapitalist doper'. The sqcialist. left argued that the workers must have their own education, financially independent of all capitalist agencies including the state, and after the War, the

17G.V. Portus, memo on lr{acCallurnts Indictnent, Bland Files, D.A,E. , Sydney r8H" Anderson to Il" Barff, 18 July 1918. Bland Fi1es, D,A.E., Sydney 103. cffic.acy of thc tutorial classes was seriously assaj.led by the withdrawal of many unions in sympathy with the Labour College movement.I9

Portusr main challenge was to persuade the unions and the workers that the university could justify its claims on the minds of the working classes and that there was value in the W.E.A. ideal of non-partisan intetlectual inquiry. 'l'tris did not mean that they should shirk a critique of the existing social order but that controversial questions must be tacklecl without bias and understood without obligation. Portus could not atlow the Labour Colleges to pre-empt the burning question of t'what is to be done" so he plunged into a study of Marx in answer to the left "who said they (the W.E.A.) were not game enough to teach Marx".20 The result was a spate of lectures, courses and articles on Marx, culminating in 1921 ín the fourth of the l\r.E.A. publication series, Portust Mat:x and Modev'n Thou.ght.

In 1919, Portus dispiaced Atkinson as editor of the W.E.A. series and his disclaimer in the editorial preface of each publication v¡as a measure of the way the issue of bias dogged the lV.E.A.: The chjef aim of the series being to encourage investigation in fields of study hitherto surprisingly neglected in Australia, the lV.E.A. does not accept resporìsibility fc¡r the views eqrressed by the writers therein. Its pllrpose is to stinulate thought, not to propagate doct.rines. A disclaimer of this kì-nd may appear odd in a preface but our experience of the persistency rvith which our critics insist on attributing to the Association, the opinions of those who happen to be connected with it, has convincecl .-,s that it is necessary.2l It is to be noted that this was a claim for the idea of the W.E.A., for its instjtutional personality - it was neutral, disinterested and

I9l,tl . E.A . of N.S.W. Seventh Annual Report, Dec. 1920, pp, 7-8. 2o G. Portus, I'The Highway is Born", AustraLian Hight'tay, Vo1. 33, May 1952, p . 19. 21c. v Portus, General Preface to books in W.E.A. series. r04 . impartial. However, the precious rights of individual tutors to hold and annor¡rce their own views had to be preserved as wel1. Portus required that they be willing to discuss and defend their views in accordance with a notion of the scientific pursuit of truth which he held dear. The much cited case of Atkinson's espousal of the conscription cause, which was anatherna to the unions and therefore destructive of their trust in the l\1.8.4., had left Portus with a legacy he had constantly to disown. Although few of Atkinsonrs fellow directors supported conscription and the bulk of their students would have abhorred it, the N.S.W. secretary of the W.E.A., David Stewart, had in principle to affirm Atkinson's right to his own political opinion. It bras an example of the freedorn the W.E.A. allowed to its tutors since as an institution it had no political platform. However, Portus recogrised the limits of rationaLity in pleading such objectivíty; he posed the dilenma as he looked back, years later -

Could a man afford to support a cause in public when such public support on his part rnight endanger another cause to which he was connitted? To answer rNor in all cases would seem to be a counsel of mere colvardice. But to answer with a categorical 'Yest seems foolishne ss.22 *****

Portus juxtaposed two types of education, the rcontroversialr and the 'dogmaticr. The former, the ideal of the W.E.A., was the mark of the educator while the latter was the work of the ideologue. The faith of the W.E.A., he declared, was that rrthe extension of controversiai- education is the hope of the world'r.23 The bearer of dogmatic education

22G.v . Portus, Happlj Highuays, p. I74. 23G.v. Portus, '?Ha1 f a Loaf or a Whole Bread?" Austy,aliqn Higlu'tay, Vol. 3, no. 3. I May 7921. 105 . did not, in his view, subject hi.s rnaterial to free inquiry or criticism but r'¡rthcr inclor:tri natccl lü s str¡dcnts with frozen truths. Such were those who allowed only lularxism as the gospel of reconstruction and who accepted the ì.'tarxian analysis and solution in toto; these Portus labe1led propagandists, not teachers. On the other hand, the educator presented the same naterial but regarded it his duty to supplenent exposition with criticisn: the teacher who approaches his audience with a set of opinions, but, having expounded them, invites criticism and discussion of then by his hearers in the hope that from such discussion there shall arise a combination of his wisdom and theirs, and so the result shal1 more nearly approximate to the trutl-r about things - such a teacher is not a propagandist but an educator; or to put it another way, he believes not in dogmatic education, but in controversial education. 24 Portus was equally opposed to the teaching of history in such a way as to engencler the sort of patriotism and nationalism that the horror of

the lrirst l^üorld War had so exposed. The lesson to be learned from the War, he believed, was that a rrrational and sane world'r could only bc achíeved by educating the rnasses to both knowledge and critical thinking. He did maintain that there was a body of knowledge to be transmitted, acquired and accumulated which was a social inheritance outside the individual rather than latent within him, but it was not to be inrposerl so much as attained by conscious intellectual effort' This, he said, distinguishecl the W.E.A. from debating clubs or nere discussion groups and justified the insistence on the trained teacher

¿rncl thc universlty standard. The influence of ntodern psychology and

the new progre-ssive education was to be seen in Portustrejection of passively received knowledge and in his plea for the interaction of the

2aG.V. Portus, The W.E.A. and the \Jniuersity, a paper read to a Special Conference of the Workers' Educational Association of N.S.W., 2I July 1928. Portus Papers, P.R.G. 204, South Australian Archives. t06 . student with the subject in the business of discrrssion criticism and controversy.25

Controversial education was therefore opposed to the vested interest of both capitalist and Marxist. It was to be conducted with the "disínterested curiosity" of the scientist. In pondering the criterion of the scientific, Portus concluded that it was a quality of the nind of the student rather than of the nature of the naterial and as such need not be confined to inorganic subjects amenable to experimental veri fication : thetestofascientististheattitudeofmindin which he approaches his subject' If he is really disinterertè¿; i f he seeks facts in order to forn unbj-assed, impersonal judgenents upon thern; if he resolves to fòtlow the facts to what seems to be theirlogicalconclusion,irrespectiveofhowthat conclusion affects his cherished ideas, and his rnaterialposition;thenheisscientific'Andit doesnotmatterwhetherhissubjectiSelectÏons, or earthworms, or ethics.26

Portu.s maintained that the personal bias which coTrupts inquiry could t'an be countered by self-awareness anct vigilance and by alert willing- ne-ss to interrogate facts, and to abide by the award of reasont''27 rrplain This counsel was offered both to the intellectual and the manrt to whon he spoke for the belief in the 'ropen mind" of the worker was centrat to ü/.8.4. eclucational thinking. He argued strongly that it was not the mission of the W.E.A. to kindle revolutionary consciousness in the student but to raise his mind to social service and social altruism. The critics on the left charged Portus and his colleagues

25 G.V. Portus, "The Peoplers Task't, Australían Híghuay, Vo1. 4, no, 4, 1 June 1922, 26G.V. portus,rrsome Difficulties of the Social Sciencesr', AustnaLasian Jouv'naL of PsychoLogy and PhiLosophy' Vo1' 5, 1927, p' 30' 1"1 lbrcì", ¡c. 35 r07 u/ith diffusing the worker's proper anger by presenting hinr with acadernic alternatives on the subject of social reconsttuction. Portus answered that information was the basis for choice and that if the worker should conunit himself to labour activisln or even revolution as the expression of his social concern then he would be the more effective as a result of his I'scientificrr education: If the desire for social service takes the form of joining the Communist Party, or the Labor Party, or serving on a Free Kindergarten Comrnittee, or preaching in the Domain, that is not our affair. But we do think that our students are better Communists, better politicians, better kindergarteners, and better preachers because they have faced the facts of social life and tried to understand them, because they have not tied their ninds to the repetitions of certain formulas and convictions. 2B

Whether the actual teaching and writing of the W.E.A. intellectuals did or could achieve such an ultirnate neutrality, such a divorce of social fact from values and exhortations to social behaviour, was highly debatable. Values such as justice, tolerance, mutual understanding, altruism, service, self-he1p and self-improvement were deeply embedded in the whole W.E.A. ethos. Almost all the study on social and econornic i.ssues stemned fron the premise that the individualist capitalist systen inherited from the nineteenth century must be reforned or reconstructed. The confrontation with l,{arxist

'unioersitg" 28Portus , The W.E,A, and the op. cit I08 .

It was, in the first place, one of the significant contributions

to At¡stralian intellecttral life and clevelopment that thesc mcn clicl

engage in the contemporary debate on social reconstruction and did attenpt to involve their students in the theoretical study of

socialisn and Marxism, albeit in a simplified forrn. The subject was

a ninefield, given the conservative anxieties of the wider community. Consistent with his defense of individual conviction and the positive value he placed on controversial education, portus supported the appointment of tutors with known or suspected rrradicalrr reputations.

The two tutors he sent to Broken Hill in 1920 and Ig2I, B.H. tr{olesworth and c.ff.lt{arsh-Roberts, were both tl're subject of public controveïsy

which worríed the universityrs Joint committee as their employer. Questions were asked either because of the Marxist content of their

teacliing or because of comments made which appeared to cast doubts upon their loyalty to King and Empire - the latter usually occurred in discussion about nationalisn or Britaints role in the wat.29 portus

could live quite cornfortably rvith the appointrnent of such men and

placated the university powers on their behalf, not least because he had entered upon the same dangerous grounds himself.

In the innediate post-htar years, eight large unions in N.S.w. had

defected to the rival brancl of worker education offered by the Labor co11ege. Portus claimed they had been so swept off their feet by indoctrj.nation that they would only I'have the doctrine and nothing but the doctrit-t"rr.30 He resolved to offer his own couïses on Marx and., in testimony to academic disinterest, to invite such leftist critícs as

29See Chaltter Twoon l.{olesworth and Marsh-Roberts. ruw.E.A. of N.S.W. Seventh Annual Report 1920, p. 8 109. lll. cleary and the secretary of the N.s.w. Trades and Labour council,

J.S. Garden, to comment on his lectures at the Trades Ha11. The course on econonics which he had been teaching in his tutorial classes at the university was labelled Nlarxian Economics in 1919 and the next year a further series was conducted at the Trades Hal1 in which portus,

Atkinson and A.B. Piddington enlightened the unionists on topics such as 'rrhe Economic Interpretation of Historyrt, ,Marx and the Modern

Proletarian Movementrr, I'culture and socialir*rr.31 portus had spent two years studying Marx and reading such comrnentaries and pamphlets as he could get hold of in Australia in 1918. The twenty-four lectures on the subject did not draw a large attendance but the group whích read rrDas capitalrf under Jris tutelage mixed wage-earners with a '?highly placed civil servant, a retired consulting engineer, a païson and three teachers".32 The publication of his lectures ín Matæ and. Modezm Thought reached a much wider audience.

As early as March 1919, Portus had begun to publish comment on

It{arxist thought. The first issue of the Austy,alian Hi.ghuay carried a short article onrlNeo-Marxism in German)," from the pen of a p. Vurgost.

This was a pseudonyrn invented by Portus which he thought sounded ?rnice and nid-European, if not actually Russian' - in fact, it was merely an anagram.33 In the first few lines he announced what was his basic intellectual approach to the problems of Marxist interpretation: Marx has been hailed as the writer of the Bible of Socialism. It is, however, the fate of Bibles to suffer from authoritarian interpretations of then- selves which are sonetirnes nutually exc1usive.34

3tlbid.,,p. 9; see aLso Austz.alian Highuag, Vol. 1, no. 4, June 1919 ald Vol. 2, no. 2, April 1920. llC.V. Portus, HappA Highuags, pp.-Bärn", 240-24I. Portus, op. r+G.V.1la.V. "Tiìè-Higñway"in cit. Portus, "Neo Marxism in Germany,, Austnalían Highway, Vo1. I, no.1, March 1919, pp.9-10. rt0

ln an analogy that came readily to him, he viewed the divisions among

l4arxt disciples - Bolsheviks, Revisionists, German social Democrats, English Fabians - as a form ofrrecclesiasti-cism" like that reflected in his own church in the High, Low and Broad church positions. In

this early article, he discussed the school of German thought which

found in Marx justification for the triunph of the German state, and

almost made him an advocate of pan Germanisrn. In the next issue, he reviewed Trotsky's denunciation of nationalism and the debacle of international socialism in 1914. He approved Trotsky's peace policy of no indemnities and no annexations and his call for self-deterrnination among nations. In lr{arch 1919, Bolshevik peace proposals, like the Bolshevik reconstruction of Russia, could stil1 be viewed optimistically by Wilsonian liberals and British socialists alike since there was

litt1e reliable information on Bolshevism in practice. Portus suspended j udgement :

The real significance of the Russian situation, tày even the actual narch of events, are by no means clear to the outside world. Il/e are depending on what must be often thrice censored news for our information. At present we hear only the voices of Bolshevist apotogists on one side and of Bolshevist detractors on the other. When the way is clear for the dis.semination of impartial views on the subject, we sha11 be able to appreciate Trotsky more fully, or criticise him rore òffectually.35

Mav'x and Modern Thought appeared in l92l and was dedicated to Peter Board I'in recognition of his great services to the cause of controversial education, in this countryt'.36 The practical purpose of the book was to supply a short and accessible introduction to the

35G.V. rrTrotsky Portus, and Maïxr, Austt,alian Highuay, Vo1. I, no. 2, Apri 1 19 I 9, p. 8. rbc.v. Portus , MaJ,æ and Moder+t rhought, !V.E.A. series of Econonic, Political and social studies, Do. 4 (1,!acMil Ian, Melbourne, rg2l) . Authorrs Preface. 111. srrl)joct for W.li.l\. strrtlcnts, but it was :t1so Portus' ¿rjnr to prcscnt an "objective account of the Marxian system together with ceïtain criticisms of the leading ideas of that system".37 N1arxism, he stated, could be fo1lowed, opposed or criticised but it could not be ignored. Nor could it pass unscrutinised as the vera doctrina. The study covered four aspects: the place of lrfarx in the history of thought, the materialist conception of history, the Marxian theory of value and Marx and the modern proletarian movement. The first section dealt with the intellectual influences on },'farx - Hcgel, Utopian socialists and classical economists - leading on to an exposition of eighteenth century rationalisrn in order to place Marx in relation to the political theory of his age. Marx' prophecy of the decay of capitalism was set against rnore modern critiques and his assertion of scientific socialism was appreciated as having removed the r?vagaries and fads" of utopianism but, in Portusr own view, as having replaced the optinism of the

Utopians with a certain joyless fatalism. Marxr contribution to modern thought, according to Portus, rested upon his doctrine of historical materialisn and his theory of surplus value: the first was valuable to the understanding of the process of historical change and the second provided a moral force to justify reform. Portus found the Marxian principle of change, economic determinism, too exclusive to exptain the complex motivations of men but he acknolledged the irnportance of lfarxf insistence on the economic element. Reviewing the debate on this point, he concluded a theory of history which pays attention to only one set of motives will present artificially simple solutions of the problens it sets out to solve and will be untrue both in prospect and retrospect.3S

37rb¿d. , Preface. 38tbid., p. s1. TI2.

similarly, Portus did not deny the significance of the theory of class

struggle. He was sceptical about the reduction of all groups and interests in society to a dichotonous nodel - 'the world will not bifurcate at the bidding of a theoïy" - and he doubted the potential poh/er of class consciousness, at least in the Australian worker.

speaking no doubt fron the l.l.E.A. experience in rallying the worker

to a cause, he felt sure that Labour Colleges and Socialist congresses would never compete with the frat at Randwick or the local picture show.39 But when all the qualifications had been aired, he returned to the importance of the class struggle as an expression of the

profound problerns in the contenporary econonic systen which had produced antagonisms based on naterial interest: Who can deny the real quarrel which exists in nodern society over the distribution of what is produced? It is scarcely helpful for well-neaning people to te11 us that the interests of capital and labour are one. Such a statement appears to be based on a confusion of terrns or else to be substantially untrue to the test of everyday 1ife. Many people deplore class-hatred - and it is deplorable - but, nevertheless, it is inevitable while our economic society is organised in such a way as to emphasise it.4o Class anirnosity was adrnitted here as a real factor but Portus could not endorse the class war as the remedy. No one theory of social ïecon- struction was in his view capable of abolishing all the hostilities

active in society. Thus, while Marxr analysis of social and economic evolution rnade sense of history, to Portus, the logic of revolution

and the classless society did not rnake sense of the future.

After a lengthy account of the theory of surplus value, portus

concluded that, despite the problems which the theoretical econornist

3s rbid. , pp. 58-59. '.o lbid. , pp.59-60. 113 could discover in Marx, both the'rvivid humanity of the writeril and the rrbeastlirress of the industrial systemrr are revealed in CapítaL and that it is this moral weight which attracts such devotees.4l The last chapter of the book was an explanation of the various responses to

Marxism within the lufarxist parties of Europe and America, stressing as always the dj.versity of interpretation: If we look for this single and undivided allegiance to one trndisputed interpretation of the gospel according to Marx we do not find it.42

Reform or revolution? In the spectrum derived from Marx, Portus advocated reform but he maintained that knowledge of Marxist theory

and communist practice must be encouraged for men to recognise that

conmunism was a condition in the world and not just a theory or a 'rhandy

Iump of polj.tical mud to throw at an opponent".43 |

For the Christian, the doctrine of historical materialisn should not, in Portusr opinion,, cause more qualm than that of biological evolution. He argued that the new social science of comparative religion allowed the influence of contemporary political and economic conditions to shapc religious thought and organisation. A belief in

the economic interpretation of history was not inconpatible; indeed,

as a Christian and an economic historian himself he found co¡nnon ground between Christianity and Marx, in the condennation of the evils of the maldistribution'of wealth. He repudiated, however, the notion that the

Bible either endorsed or rejected private property or conmunisn but he uphetd the idealism of those wishing to reconstruct the social order

\1'rbid., p. i.r7. \ztbíd., p. rzr. 43G.V. Portus , Comrmtnism and Christôanity, four lectures given to the A.S.C.li{. Conference at Mittagong in 1930. (The St. Johnrs Press, ['lorpeth, 1931) . Preface . tr4. on more rrgenerous" principles of equality. Idealisn, however nob1e, hlas not enough for the reformer: he recornmended that hard work, reading and reasoning were needed to give it purpose and direction - in effect, the aspiring reformer I'has to go to school with the Marxj-ans".44 In all, the only way men could answer the appeal of Commrnism was to recognise the truth and origins and rightness of its pïotest. The protest of the Christian social reformer would not lead in the direction of Bolshevism, in Portusr analysis, but it must be directed to a better social order, one that did not

ac.quiesce in conditions that debase the souls of whole people; but a social order which will somehow contrive a harmony of intelligent co-operation in place of the present idiotic discord of competitive interests.45

The deternination of the new social order was primarily a problen of thc control of industry but intelligence and co-operation were also necessary. These were to be fostered by education and the progressive exercise of reason. To this end, the typical lv.E.A. approach to the question of social reconstruction was to trace the evolution of the problen anrJ to present a variety of moclels, alternatives and critical evaluations. The trajectory of the lectures and courses was summed up in Portus t W,E.4. pamphlet, rrThe Problem of Industry in Politi.cs'r, as he reviewed the workerrs options for self-expression: tlnder Capitalism and Laissez-faire he expressed himself in industry alone through his Trade Union on the old Craft basis, anð regarded the State as having nothing to do with industry: r.nder State Socialism he tends to express hinself in politics a1one, thr:ough Trade Union- ism organised increasingly on the industrial Union basis, and regards the State as having everything to do with inclustry. Under Syndicalism he was asked to express himself no more in politics and to abolish tlre State as a political arrangement altogether; aaG.V. Portus , Marr and Modern Thought, pp 65-66 and Corruntmism and Christianíl;g, p. 18 and p. 33. a5G.V. Portus , Comrm,rnism and Chr"Lstianity, pp. 66-67 . r15

under Guild Socialism he is asked to express hinself, first through his Union, and second through his geographical electorate, so that he can have a voice in politics proper, apart fron industT)., and in industry ptop"t, apart fron politics.46 Portus, like most of his colleagues, found the ideals of consumer co- operation norally and economically attractive but he had no illusions about the slender hold of such alternatives in Australia nor about the appeal of an intellectualist guild socialist society in the face of the traditbnal State collectivisn in Australia. Here a stTong trade unionism had chosen politics as its medium three decades earlier. Nonetheless, underlying and informing the apparently neutral accounts of each of the many theories of social reconstruction which were outlincd to the W.E.A. student, there was the conviction of the need for ref-orm: perhaps the most pressing of aIl our social problens are those that lie in the domain of producing and dis- triLruting wealth the social effects of economic questions are so patent and insi-stent on our attention, that they nay perhaps be thought of as being the most urgent of all.+/ The role of the W.E.A. was to contribute to the settlernent of the problem by providing "Adult Education on Social Subjects".

Portu-s took the same message to the nembers of the Anglican Church discussion group when he addressed the Social Problems Conrnittee of the Sydncl, Dioccse in August, 1918. Taking as his theme "Social Linity and Labour'r, Portus reminded the audience that while his lecture concerned mainly British and European problems and thought, it would be nisleading to assume, despite the generally rnore equitable sharing of wealth in a6G.V. Portus, 'Íhe Pv'obLem of Industz'y in PoLitics, W.E.A. panphlet, no. 14, Portus Papers, P.R.G. 204, S.A.A., P. 7. a7G.V. Portus , An rntz'oduction to fndustriaL Reconstruction ín Austz'aLia uith SpeciaT Referenee l;o AustraLian CondLtions, (Sydney }.lay 1919) , pamphlet in Portus Papers, P.R.G. 204, S.A.A., P. 3. I l(r.

Australia, that the evils of industrialism did not exist here It is quite a mistake to suppose that there is no grinding poverty, no insecurity of tenure, no shocking housing conditions, and no slums in Sydney. Ask the Rector of Woolloonooloo whether these things only exist in Australia in the heated imagination of the social reformerl Read Professor Irvinets report on Housing, delivered to the New South Wales Government in 1913. And, moreover, the worst charge of this indictrnent is as true of industry here, as it is in any of the older countries - the worker is still regarded as a "hand'r and subnitted to the spiritual degradation which that concept ion inp lies-. 4 B

He suggested that there was truth in the notion that poverty was an institution contrived to make the present capitalist system more profitable. He argued that labour was becoming a more consolidated power and that pubtic opinion on the status of labour was changing as a result of the war's precipitation of social thinking. He offered for their consideration the policy of the English Labour Party as set out in Labour and the Neu SociaL )z,der. which as a prograrnme for reconstruct- ion approxinated to the W.E.A. ideas on reform:

it seems to me that in respect to the spirit of Social tlnity, the constitutional rather than the rcvolutionary section promises the better state of things.49 Nonetheless, he stressed that however constitut.ional in method, this progTamlne of the Labour ¡novement was the work of those'rprofoundly

dissatisfied" with the existing state of thíngs and determined on

change. New ways must be found to distribute the benefits of the surplus of production, Portus argued, and although proposed changes rnight prove unpalatable to many, in 1918 he believed that there were

-signs that they would come to pass. He explained the foundations of

the English Labour Party's schemes: the rmiversal enforcement of a

aBG.v. Portus, SociaL Unity and Labour', (published by the Social Problems Conmittee, August, 1918, Sydney), p. 12. 4erbíd., p. 19. tt7 national minimurn, the democratic control of industry, a revolution in national finance and use of the surplus wealth for the comnon good.

He stated frankly that the social unity which he envisaged would be better achieved by such goals than by the efforts of extrernists. Legitinate agitation was, he reminded then, the duty of Christians in the pursuit of social justice and he enjoined his educated fellow

churchmen to place their talents at the cause of social criticisn and reform:

our next business is to become inforned about the subject, to appraise remedies, to criticise and finally to construct. 5o

These words h'ere, in broader perspective, a statement of the whole W.E.A. faith in the intellectual process and an outline of both their

strategy and the way they perceived their role in achieving the new social order. *****

In nid-1918 it was not only the influence of the social reconstruct-

ion theori.sts in Britain which coloured the thought of the W.E.A. intellectuals in Australia. Before the l^lar ended, they were attracted

to Wilsonian liberalisn in their approach to the nature of the Peace,

to the war guilt question, to the League of Nations and the cause of

internationalism. The excesses of nationalism were condemned and it was recognised, at the risk of outraging local patriotisn, that the A1lies had contributed their share to the rivalries and and tensions that had erupted in 1914. The Wilsonian explanation of the causes of

\dar which were implied in the Fourteen Points were generally endorsed

sofbid., p. 19. 118 on W.E.A. platforms while the need for the League was eagerly preached: it should be a body, in Portusr words,

strong enough, because it represents all, to coerce a recalcitrant people wishing to determine for itself a course of action that will lead to war, as well as strong enough to assure for all its partners that degree of independence which is necessary for their permanent self-expression. 5l

He continued to lecture for: the League of Nations Union up tì_11 the outbreak of the Second World l\lar.

The new internationalism embodied in the League created certain ambiguities for Australians. As one of the Round. TabLe correspondentfs pointed out, Australiars separate representation at the Peace Conference and her projected menbership of the League amounted to a great shift in Australiars stance in the world of nations. It was not clear how this would affect Britain's responsibility for the Doninions and to what extent Australia might forfeit the security of British protection.52 Portus' affiliation exemplified this shift in Australiars relations.

In 1920 he was invited by a Sydney lawyer, H.S. Nicholas to join the

Sydney circle of the Roumd TabLe, a journal dedicated to imperialist sympathies, and he became a member of the editorial group. Portus

conceded the conservatism of the older members like Henry Braddon and

Mungo NlacCallum but he saw hinself as introducing a r'1itt1e radical leaven".53 On the other hand, his interest in America and the Pacific continued to develop. In 1927, he attended the Annual Conference of the Institute of Politics at Williamstown, Itlassachusetts, where he acted as secretary to one of the Round Tables on the problerns of the

srrbid., p. 7 . 52rr1¡s Return of Mr Hughes", Rotmd Table, Vol. 10, Decenber 1919, DD. 179-185. 33c.v. Portus , HappA Highuays, p. I43; pp . 232-233. 119

British Commonwealth. Under the chairmanship of his old W.E.A. collcague, Herbert Heaton, the discussion centred on the meaning of autonomous communities, equal in status, within the British Ernpire.

According to the Neu Iork Herald Tribune, Portus and Heaton,

Australian and Yorkshireman, tried to explain to a largely American audience the rrrather baffling riddle of just what the British Empire or Commonwealth of the present day consi=1rrr.54 In the same year, however, Portus became a foundation member of the New South lVales group of the new Tnstitute for Pacific Relations which aimed to "study the conditions of Pacific peoples, with a view to the improvement of their rnutual re1ations".55 The Institute for Pacific Relations was planned in 1925 by a number of people in Honolulu associated with the Y.M.C.A. in the hope of brìnging to the problems of Pacific-Asian relations the internationalist approach of the Y.Nl"C.A. movement. A permanent secretariat was established in 1927, first in Honolulu and later in

New York, and six national councils were set up, including one in

Australia. One of the founders of the l{.8.4. in New Zealand, and one of the pioneers of econornics in Australasia, J.B. Condliffe was appointed international Research Secretary for the Institute.56 The

I.P.R. intended to promote research, conferences and publications on social and economic aspects of countries in the Pacific region. The Australian Group comprised two branches, one in Victoria and one in N.S.W. In 1928, each pro

collection, Stu&ies in Austv,alicn Affains, dealt with economy and

defence. The N.S.W. editors, Persia Campbell, R.C. Mills and G.V.

Portus, defíned their purpose as throwing some light on the social forces determining the course of Pacific affairs: If these forces were more adequately known, it might be possible to control and direct them. This latter function of control and direction is the business of statesrnen. Al1 that the Institute can do is to try to make clear the exi-stence of the forces and the lines of their activity.5T

As a result of his five months spent in the Llnited States in 1927,

Portus wrote an account of his own social inquiry into Anerica in order to extend Australian understanding of the country that was beconing

increasingly important to them. The Amev"Lcan Backgnotmd, which also

appeared in 1928, was unpretentiously described as a "sketchedtr

introduction to a complex subject but the book is valuable as a reflection of the íssues which Portus thought should concern Austral- ians.5E Unlike the American tours of his colleagues, Peter Board,

R.F. Irvine and D.B. Coplar-rd, Portus did not focus on the arrangements of universities and research in America. He cast a nuch wider glance at American society, analysing in particular the operation of industry and the relatíons of capital and labour. He placed this discussion, first of'a11, against what he judged to be the most síngular aspect of America - the racial composition of the people and their interaction with the geography of the continent. The racial background, he believed,

modified and influenced every aspect of American life. It was also an

5Tstudies in Austv,alicwt Affairs, op . ci.t ., Preface. 5BG.V. Portr-rs, The American Backgrouvtd, (l,felbourne, 1928) t2I

i,ssuc of rclcvance to Austratia in the twentj,es when the question of the quantity and quality of her population was being hotly debated. Portus explained the concept of the Melting Pot, and outlined the variety of solutions suggested for the Negro problem. In the end, he rejected ethnic diversity as a rnodel for Australia because it presented hazards to tÏe standard of living: I do not want Australia to have to face a colour problem. I do not want Australian labour to be hanstrung by a babel of tongues and a diversity of standard of living.59 His treatrnent of industry and labour in America found nore differences than similarities between that country and Australia. In such areas as the control of industry, the quest for efficiency, the teaching of

industrial rnanagement, the contractual agreenents between employers and unions, the innovation.s in industrial welfare, he saw a healthy willingness to experiment that the conservatisrn of Australia discouraged in industrial matters. The regulation of the conditions of labour and the leve1 of wages by the State to rvhich the Australian u/as accustomed would appear to the American as rttoo paternalrr; the latter, according to Portus,

must stard up as an individual and nake his own terms with life, and not have them nade for him.60 Portus clid not mininise the problems inherent in American society but the book was tolerant, moderate and positive in tone. It appreciated the energy, optimism and initiative of the Americans but was not blind to the evils of the capitalist, conpetitive ethic. Finally, the book contained some fine urriting, lucid and evocative in its descriptions of both sides of America -

ssthid., p I2I. 60 tb¿d. , p 103. r22.

The Anrericans call their ourn countTy the New World, and this not without reason. It inpresses one with a new value of old things. It has taken the common- place of life, like shops and offices and hotels, and given then a new appeal. It throws over the faniliar rocking-chair an investiture of new romance. It restores to the traveller a new appreciation of one of the oldest beauties in the world - the countryside. But, with all this, there co-exists new ugliness, new grinness,_and the unsightliness of the newer industrialisn.6l

Portus' writing about his own country belonged to the beginnings of labour history in Australia, a branch of history which developed, as it did also in Bri.tain, largely outside the acadety.62 In Australia, it was firstly the province of labour men themselves, like George þdilr'cíans i'ke B1ack, W.G. Spence, William lvlolris Hughes andnA.St. Ledger, or of st¿rtisticians such as Tinothy Coghlan and later J.T. Sutcliffe. Foreign observers including lV. Pember Reeves, Victor Clark and Albert lvtétin had also contribr:ted to the field and the emphasis of the W.E.A. on industrial history had provided further stimulus. Portus drew on thi-s tradition in his chapter f'The Labour Movement j-n Australia, (1788-

1914)" published in Atkirrsonts AustraLía, Economic and PoLiticaL

StudLes and in his contribution, I'The Gold Discoveries, 1850-1860r', to tlre Australian voLume of The Canbridge Hístory of the British Ernpire. His argument was that, even in early convict Australia, the radical political element in the population had produced a Iabour consciousness and that the discovery of gold had liberalised the comrnunity by introducing a democratic leaven into the population. It wa-s not the economic impetus provided by gold that was its most

6rtbid., p. rr7. 62stuart lr4aclntyre makes the sarne point about Scottish labour history in a review of Ian l'{acDougall, Essays in Scottish Laboun Hístory, in Laþout, History, no. 38, May 1980, p. 113. 123

significant effect but the change in the quality of the Australian people that it indjrectly brought about. He cited the injection of

Europe's disappointed Republicans and chartists which acted as a precipitate of the Australian national type - a type which for portus

was always essentially British, but one transmuted by a new environ-

ment and a new order. He noted the evolution of the labour movenent

to 1914, and its achievements in both inclustry and politics, but he was concerned to expLain both in terms of a conditioning matrix of

democratic sentiment which characterised the general community as

much as the workers. According to his argument, the 'rcontemporary political conditionsrr in Australia were what nade possible the early

birth of a Laboul party and it was the democratic climate which enabled Labourts progress. 'fhe achieving of democratic institutions belonged in his view to the wider community, not simply to a single class:

Australian Labour was a part of a new community whose members had agreed to establish that nachinery though they were not blind to the possibilities of its use, This shows that outside the ranks of organised labour in Australia, there was even then a solid block of public opinion that was strongly dernocratic in tone and 1ikely to be in ready synpathy with the atternpts of the t,/age- earners to secure for themselves betterment of conditions of working and 1iving.63

It wa-s his opinion that the Labour novernent owed more to the previous

forty yeíÌrs of dernocracy and to the support of "middLe class idealists and synrpathisersr'- lnen of radical ideas such as Henry parkes, David

Syme or Graham Berry - than it now acknowtedged. Now that Labour was strong and organised he warned that it could only ignore such support outside its ranks at its own peril.64 Just as broad-ninded liberal

63G.v. Portus, trrhe Labour Movement in Australia (1788-lgr4),,, chapter IV in lvferedith Atkinson (ed.) , Austz,aLra, Econow|b and PoLitical Studies (lt{elbourne, 1920), p. 165. 6+rbid.., pp. 187-188. t24 nrcn, l)rjor to thc ¿rtlvcnt of social'i sm ¡rnd labour, hatl nourishedrra general conception of well-being't in Australia, Portus hoped that in his post-war Australia there would prevail

the same general toleration of spirit which has hitherto made possible our advance towards social betterment .6 5

This reading of the historical relation between middle-cIass trtolerants and reformersrrand the l,abour movement was a plea for the recognition of the role of men like hinself. It denied that one class alone could achieve social progress (which was not itself questioned) and insisted on the shaping force of liberalising ideas. History, her:e, served contemporary ends. In the quest for unity and social harrnony, as Portus and the W.E.A. conceived it, the alliance of intellectuals and reformists with the cause of labour was crucial. This particular justification was needed at a time when the function of university men in the education of the workers was trnder attack.

Citing such figures as Lord Shaftesbury, Robert Owen, Marx, Lenin and Trotsky, Portus asserted, I do not believe the workers can do without the intellectuals the workers have found their leaders among the ranks of the intellectuals.66

The Australian Labour movement has not been noted for its significant response to the cries of intellectuals but R.J. Boyer, in an obituary for Portus in 1954, tendered a wider view which Portus himself would have endorsed:

How much our Australian society, finding its way through political theory in an age of revolution and violence, owes to such men as Portus is beyond our guess. We need only to be reminded that the bloodless political history of our

6stbíd., p. 1s8. 66G.V. Portus, The W.E.A. and the uniuersity, op. cit. r25.

country starting as it did with such passionate resentments as a legacy from our early origins, is a triumph of democratic gradualism and British restraint which could never have been achieved without such influences of enlightenment and moderation. 6 7

To the transplanted British Tutorial class movement' Portus gave an Australian voice. He believed that Australia was different in its social outlook - he described it as a "curióus conpound of emþirici-sn and tolerancerr. For hin it was a countly without doctrines where there was a conviction that "a satisfactory solution of social problems involved far more than technical economic considerationsrr The decent and humane conscience was as important to Portus as the advance of the applied social science. Unlike some of his colleagues who participated in the mission of the l,tJ.E.A. - or therrsecular ninistryr? as he called it - he saw himself as a man with a torch to bear rather than an empire to build or a profession to found.

67R.J.F. Boyer, 'rG.V. Portus - The Passing of an Australian Liberal'r, Austv'aLian Qunrtet'Lg, Vol. 26, September 1954, p' 10' Reuieu, ddc.v. portus, "Wagä Fixation in Ãustralia", American EcononrLc Vo1 . 19, Nlarch 1929 , P. 75 . CHAPTER 5, Froncis Armond BIond: The Science of Government L26.

Meredith Atkinson and G.V. Portus are readily identified with the W.E.A.rs early phase but less prorninence has been given to Francis

Arrnand Blancl. One of the first tutors for the N.S.l\1. Association,

Bland was appointed Assistant-Director to Portus in 1918. He held that post until 1934 when he was offered the foundation chair of public administration in the University of Sydney - the first chair in the country in the field that Bland hinself had pioneered. After his appointnent to this fuIl-time post, he continued as a member and later chairman of the Joint Cornnittee for Tutorial Classes, defending its interests until his retirement in 1948. He continued also to teach for the W.E.A.: as Portus asked, was there anyone else in Australia who had taken tutorial classes continuously from 1914 to 1944 with only a three-year break?l Blancl was also the fj-rst editor of the W.E.A. rs journal, the Austv'aLian Highuay, established in 1919. It was a task he undertook with great energy and efficiency right through the twenties.

His own book, Shadous and ReaLities of GouerTtmenl;, pubtished ln L923, was number seven in the lrl.E.A. Series of Econornic, Political and Social Studies I'wri tten in Australiarr.

It is, however, not only Blandts long-tern and productive dedication to adult education which denands his inclusion in a study of these early

W.E.A. intellectuals. In many ways, although a native Australian, he was the paradign figure of the type of university man whom Mansbridge had in mind for his "adventutetr in working-c1ass education. Bland achieved an integration in his life and work which made him especially

1G.v. Portus, trBland and Adult Education", PubLíc AdmLnistrat'Lon' VII, no. 2 (new series) June 1948, pp. 135-140. This issue contains a series of articles reviewing the many aspects of Blandrs caïeer, written on the occasion of his retirement. There is also a comprehensive bibliography of his writings compiled by Jean Crai g. r27 suited to the lrtl.E.A. task. R.s. Parker, one of his most eminent pupil-s, remarked that in Bland one found that the enthusiasm of the specialist, the duty of the citizen and the moral conscience of the individual are inseparable.2 This integration of his Christian comrnitment, his public and academic career and his involvement in worker education aIlows us a further perspective on an Australian intellectual tlpe in these formative yeals.

Although G.V. Portus was the one among the w.E.A. principals who had actually taken Anglican orders, it is through F.A. Bland that the Christj-an Socialist dirnen-sion of the original English rnovement is best studied in its tTanslation to Australia. Btand was an excellent exanple in these years of that personal and intellectual tenper which, in various ü/ays, characterised these frontiersmen of the social sciences.

He combined his certainties about the power of the social scíences to guide the new democracy with a broad rnoral and social concern that was the legacy of the ethical liberalisrn of the late nineteenth century.

His own social science, the study of the structures and functions of

govelrnment, was not to be narrowed to the technical mechanics of adninistrative systems although this was the substance of his work. He believed that a "Christian cornrntnity is morally responsibl.e for the character of its own economic and social order".3 lvlere personal Christianity was not, in his view, sufficient answel to the social

2R.S. parker, 'rF.A. Blandts Contribution to Public Adninistration in Australia", Public Adninistration, op. c'|t., p. 166. 3B1and quotes these words from the Report of the Archbishop of Canterburyrs Fifth Corunittee of Inquiry into Christianity and Industrial Problens, 1918, in his address "Class Consciousness'r detivered at the Cathedral, Sydney, 31 March 1919. Typescript of address in Bland Papers, Sydney University Archives. r28 problem: it must engage the specific energies of the Church, of voluntary as-sociations and of social scientists. His own contribution to shaping the social order - the prornotion of the teaching and training

of public adninistration in Australia - was as much a spiritual and educational matter as a political and economic one. His own social science had for him both a moral basis and a moral end and it would mistake his purpose to interpret his criteria ofrreconomytr, "efficiency" and public accountability of government as neutral value-free objectives. Nor was his work with the W.E.A. sinply an appointment which allowed hin to develop his field of expertise within the university while

advancing social betterment arnong the workers outside. There was a vital continuurn which he never ceased to assert between his universíty work and his extra-rnural teaching. As he conceived it, public adninis-

tration operated for the true development of the human personality - the proper justification of alI government - only when public education had

produced a citizenry which was able to demand government responsive to its needs. Adult education, he said,

is the direct result of modern political democracy, which assunìes that the average citizen is an active and intelligent ruler of his country.4 fn more specific terms he stated this continuum as a sort of social triad: the higher the political intelligence of the votet, the better the type of representative, and the greater the incentive for the official to give of his best to the community.5

He saw his task as both contributing to the first of these three factors

af.A. Bland, "Adu1t Education Programmes and the Community", (n.d.). Synopsis of talk given at Newcastle, Bland Papers S.U.A. 5p. Bland, trlocal Governmentrr. Typed draft of article intended for St Johnrs College (Armidale) Magazine, 26 February, 1922. Bland Papers S.U.A. r29 .

ill his trrtorilrl classcs ancl public:rddrcsscs, and, ìtt his ¡lrollcssional writing and tçaching, as explicating the complex relationships between the second two.

Bland was drawn, in the beginning, to the W.E.A. idea because of two things in his own life - first, his own long and arduous experience as an evening student6 at the university and, second, the influence of R.F. Irvine with whon he worked closely for twenty years until lrviners retirement in L922. Born in a suburb of Sydney in 1882, Bland attended

Kogarah public school ancl, like Albert Mansbridge, left his formal

education behind at the age of fourteen when he became a clerk in a Sydney firrn. In 1900, R.F. Irvine was appointed to the position of

Examiner on the new Public Service Board set up by a reforming Public

Service Act of the Reid government in N.S.W. in 1895. Irvine soon appointed the young Bland as a secretary and until the lVar Bland studied at the university while carrying an increasing load of responsibility

in his work with the Public Service Board during the day. He gained a B.A. in 1909, studying philosophy and socíology under Francis Anderson, an LL.B. with Honours in 19L2 and an M.A. in 1914. His excellent achievements in his law studies impressed Sir George Beeby who offered

hin a career in the 1aw but Bland wanted to pursue his understanding of the work of the pubtic service"T In 1916, in the middle of war, he took himself and his family to London to study public administration

under Graham Wa11as at the London School of Econonics. 0n his return to Australia, Bland was attracted to the position of Assistant Director

6Bland's first contact with the lrl.8.4. was as the representative of the University Evening Students Association. See E.l{. Higgins, Dauid Steuav,t and the h/.E.A., p. 27. 7p.f,. Barraclough "Professor Bland and the New South l\rales Public Servicer', Ptthlic AdmLn.istration, op. eit" pp. 145-150. 130 .

to Portus in the Departmcnt of Tutorial Classes. He took up the appointment in 1918 ancl once again found himself an assistant junior to Irvine who had been appointed to the first chair of economics in / T 'LgtZ. Bland was to lecture in public and m{nicipal administration in the school of economics which was at that tine in the Faculty of Arts

It was Irvine who had introduced Bland to the new w.E.A. in Sydney. Hinself one of the first tutors for the Association, taking classes even before Atkinson arriVed, Irvine suggested Bland to Atkinson in 1914 as rrone who would be likely to consider favourably the possibility of taking tutorial class work under the scheme of the W.E.A.r'B Despite the pressure of his public service work Bland was keen: he told Atkinson that he had been reading up on I'Industrial Subjectsrtand felt ready to sign up for the twenty-four lectures of which the courses were to consist.9 In 1915 he took industrial history

and economics at Hurstville and Wollongong; in 1918 he was the tutor in political science for the classes held at the university and in economics at Drummoyne; 1919 saw him offer a cou1se in public administration and in 1921 he was one of several tutors running courses on rrsocial Questions".l0 During the llJaï, he and Portus engaged in the first expeiiments in Army Education with their I'l\I.E.A. lectures for the Troops" while in 1920 he taught salaried officers of the N.S.W. Railways about transport economics and business administration. I1 Such courses, according to David Stewart, weTe taught "from the point of view of citizenship rather than of professional technique".l2

8vl. Rtkinson to Bland, 17 July 1914. Bland Papers, S.U.A. 9Bland to R.F. Irvine, 30 .Iu1y 1914. Bland Papers, S.U.A. lOAnnual Reports of the w.E.A. of N.s.I¡¡. 1915-1928- 11G.V. Portus, op. cít., P. 135. 12g.M. Higgins, Dauid Steuart and the l^/.8.A., p, 44' 131 .

During his year in England Bland immersed himself in the W.E.A., attendi,ng tutorial classes, study circles, tutorsr conferences, branch meetings, joint committee neetings and surnmer schools at Oxford and Bangor. He lectured on Australia describing its I'Life and Labourrr to the London workers in 1916. He joined fellow Australians, B.H.

Molesworth and H. Duncan Hall, at the Summer School at Balliol in 1917 where they shared the teaching with Henry Clay. The core of the discussion at this conference was the issue of the control of industry so that Bland became involved in the British debate on the reconstruction of industry discussing urgent questions of scientific management, weLfare, democratisation and Whitley councils. His own topics covered Australian experirnents with social legislation and the principles of administration in a democracy.l3 He was a member of the Christian

Social Union and sufficiently close to Mansbridge to ask him to act as godfather to one of his children. 14 His account of an Australianfs impressions of the English l1l.E.A. written for the HigLu'tay showed his absorption of the Mansbridge rhetoric as he described the dedication of the English worker-students : what an intense longing for mental and spiritual food possessed then; and how easily they were prepared to sacrifìce themselves to attain their object it is from the efforts of these men and women that the new England will arise, for they have seen the vision splendid and have resolved not to be weary in well- doing. 1 s

l3Notice of lecture on'tlife and Labour in Australiat'to London W.E.A. 12 December, 1916; Report of W.E.A. Summer School, Ba11io1 Col1ege, Oxford, 1,917 . Bland Papers, S . U. A. 144. Mansbridge to Blanã, 25 August 1918. Mansbridge thanks hin for photos of his godson. Bland Papers. For further information on the Christian Soci-al Union and related movements, see P. drA. Jones, The Chv,ístian SociaList Reuiual 1877-19L4 (Princeton 1968) . 1sBland, ?rAn Australian's Impressions of the W.E.A. in Great Britainr', Hiçfuuay, Vol. 10, I9L7, p. 5. r32.

In the classes Bland had taught in N.S.w. in 1915, the I'vision splendid" was glinpsed rnainly byrtthose who have known the movement at hornertand by the local teachers, according to his reports to Atkinson.16 The

ItJar had diminished the will and the numbers in many local cornmuni.ties but Bland was inclined to a more profound diagnosis: the people of a young country were too busy for things of the mind and the spirit. In

Australia, there l^/as an apathy engendered in well-being: Sheltered alike from the fear of competition and the spur of destitution, it requires a finer moral fibre to shake off the feeling of cornplacency and satisfaction with exlsting conditions. l7

FIe noted also the absence of the sort of historical associations and institutions which stimulated learning in England and contrasted the wealth of intellectual talent he had encountered there with the nel^Iness and inadequacies of Australiars universities. Altogether, Blandrs exposure to the English W.E.A. had resulted in a thorough conversion. He returned to Australia full of enthusiasm for British reconstruction theory, in particular that emanating from the inquiries cf the Anglican bishops intc¡ education and industry. The "Social Questionsrr course and the series on "The Problems of Social Reconstruction'r which he taught after the l^lar were more eclectic in the range of issues they engaged than his earlier cours,es on industrial history and trade unionism. 'Ihe core of "Social Questlonsrrwas, predi-ctabLy, the control of industry but this was set in the rvide context of lectures on lVhite Australia, the

League of Nations, the European break-down and Russian communism. The Iast topic was housing and town planning, with particular reference to

16F. B1and, Report on the Tutorial Classes of Wollongong and Hurstville, 1915. Bland Papers, S.U.A. 17F. Bland, "An Australianrs Impressions of the W.E.A. in Great Britainrr, op. cít. 133.

Irviners report for the N.S.W. government onrrThe Housing of Workingnen" submitted in 1913. The syllabus of the "Social Reconstructionrr course covered the whole spectrum of post-war problems which the W.E.Â. intellectuals wanted to put before the public. The essential question which Bland posed, according to his outline, was the relationship between liberty and authority - as he phrased it, how to be free without being lawless. His six rnain sections were Political Questions, Economic Questions, Imperial Relations, International Relations, Social and Educational Problens and Problems of the Pacific. The course began with the theory of representative government and moved to economic problems such as the control of industry, wage fixation and arbitration, unenployment, scientific management and the control of monopolies.

Imperial relations raised the nature of the bond between Australia and other Dorninions and the Mother Country while in International relations he evaluated nationalism, the doctrine of the balance of power and the

idea of the League. The main social and educational questions were

the position of women in society and industry, the desirability of apprenticeship and vocational training, and the problem of "societyrs derelictsrr - the nentally deficient, the unemployable and the alcoholics. Fina11y, the twenty-four lectures concluded with a look at Australiats

Pacific neighbours, American and Asiai, and the effect of her geograph-

ical position on her place in the British Empire.lB In all, this was

a. very typical W.E.A. course, attempting to catch up both the pressing contemporary issues and to situate Australia in the widspost-ì,r/ar world.

These were the matters on which a self-governing people should be informed.

lBsyllabus outlines and synopses of several lectures are in Bland Papers, S.U.4. t34

ln cornmon with his IV.Iì.4. colleagLrc:;, Bland hcld that the big problcm in inclustry was not wages but the status of the worker. While all the l1l.E.A. intellectuals argued for the humanisation of industry in different ways, and rnost of then urged some measures of democratis- ation of industrial control, Bland saw the problem of the industrial world in terms of morality. His ideal was the Christianising of industry or the redeeming of inclustry in "the light of the Cross".19 Such explicitly religious language was probably reserved for his many addresses to the bishops and members of the Church of England, the audiences of Christian Social Problems groups and the readers of Anglican papers like the Church Record for which he wrote, but his basic principle of change remained an ethical one. The transformation of the motives of men according to Christian values would obviate the tensions which at present expressed thetnselves in class conflict: if the teaching of Jesus Christ can transform industry into a public service, as it ought to do, then the motive ìor class conflict will be lost.2-0

His fajth was an activist one. He wrote to an English friend, a vi.car in Liverpool, in 1919, I have recently joined the Socjal Problems Commj.ttee of the Church of England here and seem to be getting rnixed up more and more with church work. I have been a rnember of the Symod of the Diocese for some tine and am now a member of the board of education as wel1.21

He had been a member of the Sydney Diocesan Synod since 1912, was licensed as a local lay Reader in 1913, and served as 1ay secretary of

the Synod from 1921 to 1927. During 'that period, he was also a member

19F, B1and, Address to the Cathedral on'rClass Consciousnesstr, p. 15: rrWe too have a world to win. We have indtrstry to redeem in the light of the Cross'r. Bland Papers, S.U.A. zotb¿d., Foreword, p. 2. 2lBlancl to Ronald Lccs, 14 Novenber 1919. Bland Papers, S.U.A. 135 . of the Diocesan Board of Education, of the Council of lt'loore Theological

College, and of the Council of the Kingrs School from 1924 to 1933.

He also became involved in the University of Sydney's social work project, the Settlement House, which was inspired by the example of

Toynbee Halt in London.22 Bland admired the social activisn of the

Church of England bishops in Britain and held them up as a nodel for his own Synod. The Australian clergy, he maintained, should fo1low the message of Bishop l{estcott, the fotrtder of the Christian Social Union to re-evaluate the problems of each new generation. They ought not rrrest indolently content upon the conclusions of a dcad past'r by which hc lncant they ought not accept the nineteenth century collusion between established religion ancl the laissez-faire economy,23 The bishops must register their emphatic protest against social injustice but to do this they must accept that the social system was not the procluct of the immutable natural 1aw but that of fa1lible rnen and therefore amenable to human reform. He pointed out to his fe1low- corrntrymen that

there has recently come an awakening as to the incom- patibility between our economi-c practices and our religious professions. 24

Because of its organisation for personal gain, the economic order of laissez-faire capitalism ran contrary to rnoral precepts: it enhanced self-interest rather than social servi-ce. It was unsound in structure and immoral in outlook. Bland was not denouncing private ownership but the uses and social function of wealth. The recently published

225.J. Butlin, note on Bibliography of lvritings of F.A. Bland, Pt'tbLi'c Adnrinisl;r,ation, op. cit. pp. 9L-92. 23F. Blancl, Speech to Synod on rrUnemploymentrr (n.d., c. 1921). Notes in Bland Papers, S.U.A. 2aF. Bland, Address to the Cathedral on I'Class Consciousness", p. 2, Bland Papers, S. U.A. 136 . findings of the Commonwealth Statistician, Goorge Knibbs, on the distribution of prì.vate wealth in Australia based on the census returns of 1915, u/ere frequently cited at length by Bland to vindicate his criticism: he reflected, it is renarkable that such an extraordinary disproportionate division of wealth should have manifested itself so early in our national 1ife, but ít serves to show how completely we have transferred and adopted to our own circumstances the glaring economic imperfections of the Otd Wor1d.25

There was in his view a moral oblìgation to distribute wealth more evenly because the accumulation of wealth could only be sanctified by its function for social well-being.

In his analysis of the I'social problem" Bland had learned much from the example and the theories of R.H. Tawney who had collaborated closely from 1916 to 1918 with the Anglìcan bishops on the relation of Christianity to the industrial situation. Tawneyrs first exposure to adult education had been the university settlenent at Toynbee Hal1, his classes at Rochdale had become the moclel for the W.E.A. everywhere, and his first major work in economic history, The ngnaniart py,obLem in the Sixteenth Centutll (1912), had been dedicated to lVilliam Tenple and

Alfred Mansbridge. In 1916, Tawney was appointed a member of the Archbishop of Canterbury's Fifth Conmittee of Inquiry into Christianity and rndustrial Problems; he worked on the repoït for several months with Bishop charles Gore at oxford. In their report, published in 1glg,

Tawney and the other members stated their belief that the Church had

25F. B1and, "Distribution of Private lVealth in Australiarr, Austy,aLían Highuay, Vo1. 1, no. 4, June 1919, p. g. I37 . been too compliant with the "possessing, employing and governing classes of the past". The main indictment of the industrial systern was its disregard for human dignity and its unconcern for social service and community need. Tawney located the problem in the control of industry which he argued was, by the end of the War, a more fundanental question than the condition of the people or the role of the state in alleviating it - these having been the issues of pre-h/ar Edwardian England.26 This was a view broadly shared by most of the post-tdar reconstructionists of the British l,abour Party: the worker should not be tlie subject of industrial autocracy any more than of political tyranny; his status should be that of a I'citizen of industrytr. Bland quoted freely fron the Archbishop's Report with particular emphasis on Tawneyts view of the workerrs place in industry. The lessons learned in the IVar were highfy formative. The l,r/ar effort had awakened the nasses to collective effort, Bland submitted, more effectively than any revolutionary propaganda. They had been reminded repeatedly by governnents of their dignity and i,nportance and had of necessity been representcd on the councils of state. Then, too, the enurneration of lofty l{ar: aims towards the end of the IVar had created expectations of a new denocracy to follow the liberal ideals of the

Peace. Bland drew on the much favoured analogy between the crumbling of decadent autocracies which the War had brought about and the need for a sinilar dissolution of economic absolutisrn: both had been inherited from the nineteenth century. This was the scenario for the end of the \^/ar but within the year the actual Peace had dashed such

26For a discussion of R.H. Tawney and the Church of England see J.M. Winter, SociaLism anÅ the ChaLLenge of hlar (London 1974), pp. L72-I75 l3B hopes. In Blandrs words, the men at Versaitles had wroughtrrthe most danrring example of our insincerity whose harvest we shal1 yet reaprt.

The Peace appeared to indicate, following the same analogy, that men intended to return to their oLd ways.27

How Bland envisaged the reorganisation of industry and what was to be the exact machinery of any industrial denocracy was not spelled out Itshare beyond the use of phrases such as "definite partnership?' and in the direction of industryrr. He was quick to assule any audience that he did not mean syndicalist control or the leftist "airy persiflagen of the Jock Gardens at the Sydney Trades and Labour Council. He rejected radical socialisn and distinguished it fron the real mind of the socialist movement as expressed by nen like Tawney, Arthur Henderson, Ramsay MacDonald, Sydney Webb and others.2B

He directed his listeners and students to Tawneyt s The Aequisítíue Society, the works of J. Ramsay NfacDonald, and the Webbst A Constitution for the SociaList ComnorueaLth of Great BrLtaín. Bland, unlike his British heroes, did not articulate systematic proposals for industrial reconstruction. He was much more pTone to invoke the I'Spilitr''of reform, the rrspirit of democracyt', and declare it nore crucial than the

machì-nery it would infuse. Until something of the spirit of democracy is infused into industry, there is little hope that the purpose of industry will be satisfactorily determined' The principle of definite partnership nust be conceded. The machinery to give effect to this pri.nciple is subsidiary, but it will present 1itt1e difficulty if approached in the spirit of goodwill ... The excÌusion

27F. Bland, Address to the Cathedral on "Class Consciousness'r, pp 6-7 , Bland Papers, S.U.A. 2BF. 81and, Synod speech on'rUnemployment'r, Bland Papers, S.U.A. 139.

of employees from any share in thc dircction of industry is wasteful ancl dangerous.29 Palliative schenes like weLfare work were endorsed because they expressed the idea of service which he believed should animate industry and they demonstrated the right notivation on the part of an employer to bridge the gulf between himself and the employee. Bland conceded that such schemes worked only in a linited fashion within the industrial system but he maintained that their spirit was most valuable in building up a trust and co-operation which might serve as the foundation for future reform. He was most sceptical about ideas of worker control, whether advanced by Bolshevists or guild socialists, because of his profìessional belief in the function of expertise. The scheme which attractecl hirn most was the Whitley one. The Joint Industrial Comrnittees which the Whitley Report proposed seemed feasible to him because of the spirit of co-operation ernbedded in the idea and because of the way the worker would be initiated into the complex business of the government of industTy by means of education and gradual participation. His vjsion was an optimistic one: admitted to a share in responsíbility, employees will learn the soundest Iessons on matters where ignorance is now a grave social and industrial danger. Made accountable for results, they will learn the importance of efficient administration, gain prudence in lessening the hours of work, understand the risks of limiting output in a society where there is stil1 an insufficiency of goods, ancl finally they wilì appreciate more fully the durability of co-operating with all the other factors in production. 3o

I-le deplored the lack of interest in these experiments by employers and workers alike in Australi-a and condenned Hughesr attempt to examine

29F. B1and, "The Industrial Conference". Typescript of article, (n.d,, c. I92I) . A1so, report of a speech to the Wollongong Brotherhood on 'r Indus trial llnrest" . Both in Bland Papers , S . U.A. 3o tbid. 140 the problem at his Industrial Conference in 1921 as a fiasco which did not begin to touch upon the ïoot caus.s.3l Like the rest of his W.E.A. circle, he was suspicious of the clains of the state in Australia to be the architect of reforn and social advance. Even the churches were guilty of the habit of reliance upon the state. The bishops may speak of the state as the guardian and the expression of public opinion but Bland argued that there was no informed public opinion, and

'rno signposts to guide us". The government hacl never evaluated its experinents and, Yet, he Pointed out, we have gone on the assumption that every ilf has a remedy if it is sought earnestly enough and have felt that the state was the best agency to effect and enforce. 32

If Btand derived rnost of his ideas about the industrial problen from his British reading, the economic theory underlying hís view about industrial co-operation wqs very sirnilar to that of his Australian mentor, R.F. Irvine. Essentially, Irvine argued a case for the social dividend which depended on productive efficiency and therefore was enlarged by the co-operation of the worker. It was an argument for the social whole, Tather than an admission of trade union ends, which Irvine put before the W.E.A. conference on trade unionism in 1915, and as such it drew a sonewhat nixed response. In his talk "Trade Unionism and Efficiency", Irvine had suggested that the traditional ends of trade unionism - faír wages, hours and benefits - had been largely achieved in Australia and that new ideas and objectives were needed to maintain the vitality of the labour novement. In short, unions should shift their concerns towards co-operative efficiency with the employer.

zr rbid. 32F . B1and, Synod speech on rrUnemploymentt', Bland Papers, S.U.A 141 lV¡ilt. tlrr. illitirr I strrl,,rrs p{- Lirllr>rrr'ts litrrrrl¡', lcls wcrcr ri¡ihtly

particular:ly moved by the notion of co-operative idealism and accused Irvine of ridiculing the workers' attempts to better their conditions, of scoffing at the labour platform, of not placing enough responsibility on the employer and of underestimating the pernicious effects of the competitive system.33 Irvine protested that his sympathies were with labour but it was left to Bland to write a subsequent papeT which re- iteratecl Irvincrs main points, explainecl them nore patiently and tried to reassure the trade unions.34 Throughout his career Irvine indicted the capitalist and the employers in an equally uncompromising manner

which won hin few friends in that class and he was in general an economist trusted by the workers, but the issues raised by co-operation and

33R.f'. trTTade (ed) Irvine, Unionism and Ef ficiencyn in M. Atkinson ' Ty,ad.e Unionism in Australia, (Sydney 1915) pp. 31-39. See particularly the transcript of Questions and Discussion, PP' 38-39' 3aF. Blancl, i'Tra.le Unionism and Efficiency. A Consideration of the paper read by Professor Irvine at the Educational Conference'r 1915. Typescript in Btand Papers, S.Ll.A. t42. efficicncy wcrc thorny lrncl clotlhlc-eclgecl . lìland, howcver, still enLrrìci atctl thc same b¿lsi c point: he believcd that rneasures of reconstïuction and welfare should induce the worker to co-operate. With such concessions, he wrote,

we could ask for maximurn product-ion, for after all it is only out of the product-of industry that the cornmunitY get their- wages.35 Implicit in this argument was the assumption that the improved output of the co-operative workforce would inevitably lead to a proportionate increase of the improved profit among the workers. Such an assumption was a reflection of the rationalist optinism that trusted to ideals of public service as the reforrning forces in the economy. ts1and was confident that once the idea of production was related to the idea of service, industrial unrest would cease. Thus the question was resolved in rnoral rather than economic terms. The relations of production, the interests of divergent classes - the very existence of class - were not issues to be faced so much as willed away by the assertion of connunity above indivj.duals and by messages of corporate behaviour transcending class ends. *****

on hi-s appointment to the university of Sydney in 1918, Bland lectured under R.F. Irvine i-n the school of economics and to the students studying for the Diploma of Economics and Commerce. In 1920 the Faculty of Economics was established and R.C. Mi1ls joined Irvine as his full-time assistant until he succeeded him in 1922 to the chair. Blandts half-courses in public and rnunicipal administration were offered in the uppeï years of the econornics degree and were both the first to be taught in the subject j-n Australia. Principles of public

35F. BLand, speec-h on ttlndustrial Unrest. and on '?llJelfare Work" given on the occasion of the Jubilee of Waterloo at the Town Ha11, Waterloo, 8 September 1920. Typescript in Bland Papers, S.U.A. t43.

administration were applied in the course to specific problens in the states and the commonwealth; the history, functions and forms of

administrative nachinery in individual departments were examined together with questions of recruiting and control of the officers of the Public Service. The University Calendar described the treatnent of nunicipal adninistration as being from a t'social and political point of viewtr. In addition to outlining the forms and functions of

local government, Bland intended to add an analysis of the social and

econbmic effects. In 1925, the Degree courses were remodelled and

Blandrs two courses were integrated into a single course on public

administration. In 1930, a Diplona of Public Administration was offered as academic training for administrative officers requiring a qualification and, in 1935, Blandrs pioneering efforts were recognised in the establishment of a chair of public adrninistration which was offered to him.36

Itlhether he was teaching in the university, for the W.E.A., or

giving a course of lectures at the Teacherst College, Bland was handi-

capped by the absence of any text which dealt with Australia. There were several studies of the Civil Service in Britain which he used - the writings of IV.S. Beveridge, S. Denetriadi, D.B. Eaton, H. Finer,

E.G. Heath, R. l.'loses and the Webbs - and he drew heavily on F. Gooclnowrs

Politics and Adnrint*r,ation for his American material and examples. The politico-psychological books of Grahan lt¡allas , Our Social Hez"itage and Human Natuv'e in PoLitics, raised many of the questions which he applie

36R.c. I{iIts, ffBland and the University,,, PubLic Aúninistration, op, sLt. pp. I29-I32. L44 . to equip his students with a synopsis of every lecture he gave, in effect constructing a text as he went along, until ín 1922 he wrote

Shadot'¡s and ReaLities of Gouerrytmenú to serve his basic purpose. Pub- lished in 1923 as number seven in the W.E.A. Series, the book was dedicated to R.F. Irvine and, following Irvine f s ornrn broad-ranging social concerns, it was aimed at a wider audience:

it is hoped'that it wí1l make sorne appeal to that widening circle which, in every democratic country, is interesting itself in the efficient administration of public affairs.3T

The book fell into two parts: the first was addressed to problerns of public adminstration in a democracy and to possible reforns, while the second was devoted to a digest of the history, functions and responsibilities of thirteen different departrnents of the Public Service of N.S.lV. The corrpilation of such material, essential to any study of Australiats government, was in itself a valuable and pioneering exercise but Bland l^ras not only interested in the production of a useful handbook. It was his aim to contribute to the accessibility of public information which he believed to be a key criterion of good govemment. The public were aware of the visible doings of politicians but they did not r¡nderstand the administrative functions which under- pinned parliaments. Bland argued that if these functions remained obscure, and the people continued to be preoccupied wi-th politics, then the course of effective government would be vitiated. Thus he declared the prrrpose of his book was to throw into relief the administrative functions of government. If the administration of government were to be properly responsive to the needs of the cornmunity and accountable to

37F. Bland, Shadous and ReaLíties of Gouernment, An intz.oduetion to the study of the oz,ganisation of the adtninísty,atiue ageneíes of Gouernment uith special refez.enee to Neu South ï,laLes lsydney, 1923). Authorrs Preface, ix. l4s. the electorate, then the publjc must be able to find out about its activitics. BLand contended that the I'shadowsrr - the nisconceptions about government and politics - nust be cleareò away to reveal the 'rrealitiestr or the actual agencies and processes of government. The electorate nust be able to assess the performance of its public servants as much as it did that of its politicians, otherwise the silent functions of officials were left susceptible to several evils - ministerial manip- ulations, corruption, excessive bureaucratisation.

A basic premise of Blandrs thinking was the growth of government and the extension of its traditional lirnited functions to a 'rministrantrl ro1e. A modern science of governnent had to be developed to account for and guide the rnodern social service state and nowhere was this more true than in Australia where government intervened in so rnany areas of the lives of its citizens. Bland saw that new conceptions of government were required by the I'social, intelIectual, artistic and econonic conclitions of moclern timestrbut in his professional writing he did not debate the theoretical desirability of an interventionist state.38

He was concerned wíth hou governments night operate more effectively rather than with whether they oughú operate so wiclely.39 It was the connection between public service and public welfare that he explored.

New ranges of government activity required new departments and new

techniques of recruitments, training and supervision. Three facts had to be borne in mind; First the extent and new direction of Governnental activities, second the evolution of the adninistrative methods and personnel to neet the hew demands, and thirdly the àltered character of popular representation.40

3ÙÍbid., p. 3. 39F. Bland, rrThe Aclninistration of Government Enterprisesrr , Eeonomie Record, Vo1. V. li{ay 1929, p. 1. 4oshadous and ReaLities, p. 70. 146.

In Shadous and ReaLiti,es he examined three large questions: the relation between Parliament and the Public Service or that of the responsible minister to the expert official, the internal organisation and running of administrative departments, and the need for research in the formation of public policy. Efficiency an

Reforms ín the British Civil Service in the nineteenth century had their counterparts in Australia. Nepotism and the cruder forms of lnconpetence were substantially diminished and recognition was given to talent and training in the recruitment and promotion of officers. But the increasing cornplexities of modern society created new problems and posed new dilemmas. Political party systems which had developed with the extension of the franchise to the masses seemed to Bland to present a new danger. Ivith the broadening of the electorate he believed it a fair assumption that rrthe capacity of the individual representative has deteriorated" - on the other hand, the permanent official had become rnore expett.42 The ministerrs career in any one area might be short and precarious, his knowledge accordingly superficial, and his energies distracted by party political intrigue. In such circumstances the ascendancy of a silent administration threatened the representative principle. Bland was ever insistent that ministerial responsibility

4I rt"-' s tu t/u. , p 7 42Íbid., p 73. r47 fnust berrTealrtand not a shadowyrrfiction". In the same way that the elected ninister must control his department, the minister must be controlled by Parliarnent and not by party pledges, caucuses and cabinets. The current situation in government in Australia appeared to Bland to be fraught with paradoxes and inconsistencies which demanded study and reforrn. There was also the danger of improper ministerial influence on the Public Service which the existence of Public Service Boards and Statutory Comnissions in Australia was intended to guard against. The relationship between their autonomy and the elected representatives of the legislature was an area which, Bland argued, had yet to be worked out in Australia. This equilibriun between officialdom and the legislature presented Bland with his key problern and provoked his most penetrating and innovative analysis:

How can \^re secure due weight being given to the latest expression of popular confidence in a political executive, and at the same time ensure that the permanent and abiding will of the people, as repres- ented by the independent official agencies, shal1 be safeguarded? But if we give these agencies real independence, how shall we avoid not nerely the growth of bureaucracy but the rise of a new Despotism?+ r In the opinion of R.S. Parker, Blandrs most distinctive contribution to thought about public administration lay in his attempt to ansurer this question.44 Shad.ous and Realities showed the initial direction of his thinking. A basic condition for the proper balance in governnent in any Bland reform was accessibì-lity of information. This alone nade popular criticism and public awareness possible: it will be adnitted that the public and Parliament want to know, and ought to know, what the officials are doing, and what iheir policy involves.45

43Quoted in R.S. Parker, op. cit., p. 172. 44rbid. 45F. Bland, rrEconomy and Efficiency-II", Neu }utLook, 9 August L922, p. 19s. 148.

current channels of making public inquiry into governnental ¿tctivitics wcrc in hi.s vjcw cumbcïsomc ancl inadequatc - <¡ucstions in the House did not elicit enough from inexpert ninisters, Royal rrtoo comnissions u/e?e heroicil in the anount of data they amassed, and

the annual departmental reports repelled interest with their accunulations

of dry, incomprehensible facts. If public opinion were to be educated

then government documents must be rendered intelj.igible. When questions

were asked in Parliarnent, he suggested that the officials might be

present to explain their policies, thus sharing theiT expertise and

usefully waiving protective anonymity. He argued that ministers needed

assistance in assessing their departments and that Parliament needed more avenues of information. To this end, he proposed bi-partisan

standing committees of members of the parliarnent which could act as watchclogs on the trends and costs of administrative departnents. None of these measures was designed to dirninish ministerial responsibility but rather to involve the permanent official in salutary experiences of public accountability and to further the education of the public in the 'trealities?t of government. Bland put forward a sinilar schene for the multitude of independent Boards and Commissions to which so nany areas of government were entrusted in Australia, He would not compronise their independence in the daily routines of administration but he emphasised that general policy must remain the interest of the parliarnent.

To reconcj le the dernands of autonony and popular responsibility, he had in mind a standing comnittee of the House for each major set of govern- rnental functions to which would be attached representati-ves from the relevant departrnent. Advisory councils of citizens from community interest groups could make representations to such a committee, thus encouraging alert involvement in the electorate: 749.

what is aimed at is not only the effective execution of affairs in accordance with the popular view, but the systematic education of opinion both in and out of Parliament with regard to the work of public adninistration. 46

It was not only the public which required education in Blandrs view but also the officials of the Public Service thernselves. His work with Irvine and his own experience in devising appropriate exarninations within the service gave him a particular interest in the procedures for recruitment, the assessnent of performance, and promotion. He accepted the British reform of entrance by competitive examination and the general principle of recruitment from below but he wished the systen to be flexible enough to adnit older men, especially university graduates, to higher positions. He argued strongly for the value of a broad liberal education as opposed to narrow vocational training if officials were to be able to solve the problems of the increasingly complex modern state. Furtherrnore, he urged that selected officers be released from their work to attend the university as ful1-time students, not as burdened evening-students. He was no doubt remenbering his own struggles to gain his degrees but he held up the value of the total university experience in the forrnation of such officials. There was, he conceded, no college in Austr¿rlia so suited to their particular needs as was the London School of Economics in England but he believed that Australian universities were developing: their economic, political and sociat departments need only to be strengthened to provide excellent training for the prospective adninisirative officials.4T It was, in short, tirne to regard the administration of government as a legitinate social science and not as an ad hoc business.

46shadous and Realities, p. r35. 4z tbid., pp. 33-34 . 150 .

The fonnation of policy - even more perhaps than its adninistratj.on

- would also be enhanced by the application of intelligence and scientific research. The l^rlar had demonstrated the capaclty to plan and to organise the nationrs resources but it was more difficult to summon such purpose in peace-time. Influenced by Wallast writing on this point, Bland advocated the developnent of a 'rthought organisation' for government, by which he meant a department of Tesearch which would assist government planning and policy. There was work for such a body in the continual investigation, of the highest scientific character, into every question of form and function in government with a viel to establishing the best correlation between aims, methods, costs and results .4 8

The external research agencies which were already in existence, such as the Statistical Bureaux and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, could be enlisted to aid government but Bland favoured the type of idea put forward by Irvine in 1915. Addressing the conference on National Efficiency held under the auspices of the Victorian government, Irvine had outlined a proposal for a national research bureau which would be "nriclway between the Universities and the State departmentrr and whose interest would be jn the gathering and analysis of social data.49 Bland agreed with Irvine that such an institute would be able to furnish accurate i-nformation as a basis for both the formation of policy and the fornation of public opinion. To the work of government departments it would be able to apply I'independent and scientific tests'r and to the Cabinet it would provide the t'thoughtrr that should be agtbid. , p. 166; pp. l6s-I70 . q9R.l-. Irvine, rrNational Organisation and ational Efficiency" in NationaL Effùciency, Ir4elbourne 1915 , pp . 17 -20 . 151 . the essential prelirninary -to action.

The dangers of bureaucracy and centralisation weïe never far from Bland's deliberations. He opposed any undue centralisation because it removed any organisation further fron its true roots and it led to officialism, fornalism and bureaucracy, all of which, according to

Bland, were symptomatic of an inert denocracy. As far as possible he supported rtwise devolution of responsibilityrt within the structures of the Public Service. The adaptation of the whitley Scheme to the Imperial Civil Setvice was an experiment which he believed merited attention. Five years after the WhitLey Council idea had been first proposed, it had become clear that there were many limitations and much of the original enthusiasm it had sparked had died away but Bland characteristically defended the spirit of co-operation it embodied.

He did not embrace notions of joint control of management but any arrangements for the joint consideration of problems appealed to him:

Although it does not envisage any fundanental change in the present system, the very association of representatives of employers ancl employees in joint conference is a long advance upon the old ideas of industrial autocracy, and opens up immense possibilities of reorganisation. I f "l\rhitleyism" is looked upon only as a substitute method for arbitrating upon disputes, rates of wages, and conditions of ernployment, or merely as a device for evoking greater efficiency, then it will simply pass into history as another ideal which we lacked sufficient honesty of purpose to translate into action. But if on the other hand it seeks by genuine co-operative effort to raise the whole standa'rd of industrial life and organisation, on the social as well as the economic p1ane, then it may indeecl effect nothing less than an entire transformation of our econorn-ic relations. 50

50Shadous and ReaLities, pp. 154-155. 152.

With its crrr¡lhlrsis r¡n nìot..i vcs ¿rntl ideals, orr thc spirit rathcr than thc machinery, this passage was typical of the character of the W.E.A. reformist ethos.

Bland was not given to extended theoretical speculation about

the society which goverfnments rnanaged but this did not mean that there was no coherent social theory inforning his technical work. Following

the emphasis in the early work of Harold Laski and G.D.H. Cole, he believed that the life of society lay in its ordinary groups and associations and that at its heart must be the informed, participating

citizen. Thus, the vitality and viability of 1oca1 government was a question which greatly preoccupied him; effective local government

was the foundation of the democratic state. In the early twenties he

was a vigorous opponent of the New States movement because he saw the creation of further states in Australia as a threat to proper functioning of local government and a resort to a further degree of undesirable

centralisation.5l On the same grounds he opposed the 'rGreater Sydneyil scheme contending that the ninicipal life of suburban localities would

be endangered.52 lìis passion for the cause of local government went

back to his career as an officer in the N.S.W. Public Service when he

had been appointed Secretary of the newly-fonned E:øn-ining Committee under

the Local Government Act of 1906. He wrote to Grahan l\Iallas,

I was very closely associated with the reformed system of Local Government in this State fron its inception in 1906, until I resigned fron the Public Service on ny return from England in 1918. We are, of course, very .nuch behind you in l.{unicipal Affairs ...53

5lC.M. Reeves, trProfessor Bland and Local Governnent", Publie Adninis- tnation't, op. cit. pp. 163-164; also D.H. Drumrnond trFrom Lecturer to Statesman" ibid., pp. I47-I43. 52F. Bland, 'tCity Government and Greater Sydney'r, AustraLas'ían JoumaL of PsychoLogy and PhiLosophy, Vo1. 7, L929, pp. 204-21I. 53Bland to G. Wallas, 19 September, 19f9. Bland Papers, S.U.A. 153.

This contrast between the weakness of local goveïnment in Australia with the responsibilities undertaken by local bodies in older countries was also frequently remarked on by Atkinson and Heaton. Both of them came from provincial England and both travelled thousands of miles around

Australian country centres during their years with the l{.E.A. It was striking evidence to then of the Australian citizenfs reliance upon the stat.e for services which, in other societies, were provided by private enterprise or local authorities: railways, eduation, charity and poor relief, public health and police were but a few examples. For this set of arrangements, they offered explanations which combined the circurn- stances of Australia's history with what might be called the geographical imperative. In a country where fron its very foundation, the authority of the state had preceded the natural community and where obstinate environment and sparse settlernent presented a peculiar econonic geography, the government was compelled into a developmental role. Among the nany who have commented on thj-s characteristic of Australian society, Charles Henry Pearson explained:

often against their own will the colonists have ended by a system of State centralisation that rivals whatever is attenpted in the rnost bureaucratic countries of the Continent.54

F.l'V. Eggleston believed that the early Australians were men of independent mind but that the forces of the environrnent had prevailed:

... whether as controller of gaols or as or^/îer of the land or the gold, the State aroused resentrnent and opposition in the average citizen. But there was an entirely undeveloped terri-tory to equip, communications to establish; the choice had to be nade quickly ...5s

54 C. H. Pearson, NatiornL Life artd Charactey, (London 1894), p 18. 55 F .IV. Eggleston, State Socialism in Victot"iø (London IgS2), p. 27. 154 .

Illrurtl w¡rs irr l3oncrlrl i¡grcorncnt witlr this cliagnosìs th¿rt hjstoricul circumstances and the absence of strong local centres had forced the

government to assume wider roles in Australia than in England and

America56 but this did not prevent his campaign against further

centralisation of public and social duties which he argued could be better carried out at local levels: It appears to the writer that the path of wisdon will be followed if we give our attention to the developing to the fullest extent the powers conferred on our local authorities by recent legislation and thus developing locaI capacity, local characteristics and local institutions which up to the moment have been subrnerged by the surge towards centralisation.5T

His case was not only an administrative one for the molt economic,

efficient and least bureaucratic structures of government but also a plea for a revitalisation of Australian soclety. This, he thought,

would be achieved in the engagement of the cj-tizen in loca1 affairs

and in the expression of local diversity and local colour. Bland and

Portus also traversed many corners of New South Wales in their role as inspectors of tutorial classes and Bland was struck by the unnecessary

uniformity of so much Australian culture. Education was a case in point - its content was almost uninfluenced by loca1 conditions while the sameness of school arch:itecture was to him a perfect example of

the mentality of centralisation in Australia.5S It was a paradox much pondered by the W.E.A. intellectuals that as democracy embraced nore of

the people, voluntary effort and associationism appeared to decline and state j-nterventionism to spread. The tension between the individualising

56 Shadous and Reali.ties, p . I . 57F. Bland, 'rlocal Governmentrr. Typed draft of article for St. Johnts College (Armidale) magazine, 26 February 1922, Bland Papers, S.U.A. sefuid.,' see also Bland, "Llnification or Self-Government?r, Au,straLasíart JourmaL of Psychology and PhiLosophy, Vol. 6, 1928, pp. 712-719. 155.

and the centralising forces i-n modern society presented him with a central chal lenge:

Today the State penetrates into the most j_ntinate of human relationships. Is the old machinery and are the former nethods satisfactory? Ivlust not centralised ad- ministration with its inperative command and rigidly uniform application give way to a consideration of the variable and sensitive human elements which have to be persuaded to co-operate in attaining the general well- being? Will not this nean fostering an adninistrative organisation whose agents will have a sympathetic and personal contact with local and individual conditions?59 The new social order, Bland argued, nust find a new interpretation of social obligations and the ends of ad¡ninistration must Temain hunan ones

Bland was in fact tacklingin his own academic field the sane problematic which worriecl democratic theorists everywhere and which preoccupi-ed more conservative intellectuals like Atkinson and Elton Mayo among the W.E.A. group. This was the phenornenon of rrmass mantr to whose irrational proclivities they had been alerted by the socio-psychological writings of Le Bon and Wallas. Blandrs concern about the operation of party politics in the Australian system was further compounded by a view of the people as individuals alienated from community in large urban aggregations and vulnerable to demagogrres who t'batten upon ignorancerr.

Opposing the Greater Sydney scheme he wrote,

In political and industrial affairs the modern cily conduces to restlessness. The individual is submerged in the crowd, which is peculiarly susceptible to mass action and to exploitation by denagogues. Furthermore, the citizen of a modern city tends to feel" impotent before the vast adninistrative rnachine with which he is confronted. And, when to this sense of impotence is added the suspicion that the political machine is often controlled by low-principled and opportunist cliques, he lapses into cynicisrn and loses his ideats.60

59F. B1and, t?Public Administration'. Review article on L. D. v{hite, An fntv'oductíon to the Study of PubLic Adnrtnístnation. AustraLasian Jouy,nnl of PsychoLogy and Phí.Losophy, Vol. 5, 1927, p. 151. 6oF . Bland, rrCity Governnent and Greater Sydneytt, op. aLt. p. 205. 156.

'l'hc cl¿rnflcrous susceptibility of the masscs was not an inherent or

permanent condition in Btand's view. It could be altered by mass

education - in the ?rmultiplication of the wise lies the welfare of the world."6l The education of the electorate was essential if the people were to resist the machinations of the party-boss or the persuasion of

the political agitator. As the Peace was being signed in paris in 1919, he wrote of the increasing disquiet in the world, of the rising social

unrest and the mutterings which seemed to presage another storn. The masses, he suggested, would no longer remain passive observers of the

stream of events. If their syrnpathies weTe to be rallied to the cause of democracy rather than to other 'ranarchic, novements abroad, then support and funding rnust be made available for their further education. Education, he argued, shoutd not be the sole responsibility of the rrare state: there no men in Australia imbued with the spirit of the Rowntrees, the Carnegies and others ...ttt62 Again, he insisted, if electors are to register a rational vote they nust be told more than a few platitudes about the efficacy of electi.ng successful business men or the unwisdom of marching under the socialist banner.63

Bland's personal efforts to expand education at all 1evels involved him in the debate about the school leaving age, in the training of public Service officials, in the tutorial class teaching, and in the preparation of university graduates. However, as an intellectual, he was conscious of the broader role of enlightening the publì.c mind and assisting the proper formation of public opinion. He was tireless in his conmitment to the community, giving frequent addresses to a great diversity of local

61F. Bland, rtliberty and Discipliner', Austz,aLasian JouymaL of psyehologg and Philosophy, Vol. 8, 1930, p. 204. bzF. trour Bland, Present Discontentstr, editorial , AustnaLían Hí,ghuay, I, No. 5, Ju1y, 1919. Ygt.o5F. Bland, 'rCity Government and Greater Sydney'r , op. ci,t. p. 206. t57 and voluntary groups - shire associations, business brotherhoods, trade unions, church bodies and woments neetings. There was the job of popul- arising issues, and the responsibility of serious discussion: he was a menber of the Rotmd TabLe gtoups,64 the editor and mainstay of the

AustraLían Highuay, a contributor to the early issues of new academic periodicals like the EconomLc Record and the AustraLasian Jour.nnL of PsychoLogy and phíLosophg. His own editorials and articles in the AustraLian Híghuay attested to his concern about the level of public opinion. He ained at bringing contemporary issues before the minds of his readers, from the question of the Peace or the idea of the Whitley Councils to the state of education in Australia. In a series of articles in 1919, entitled "Figure, Fallacies and Financesrr, he imparted information about the War reparations, about the distribution of private wealth in Australia and about the vexed questions of prices, taxation and War finance.65 Public finance was pre-eminently the sort of subject which Bland wanted the public to understand since it was a matter integral to efficient government.

Another venture in which Bland played an active role was the publication of a fortnightly magazi.ne in Sydney which flourished for about six issues between 1922 and 1923. Despite its ephemeral nature, the Neu )utlook provided a significant reflection of the intellectual aspirations of the group which launchedit. It was floated by a small company connected with the University of Sydney. A.B. Piddington was on the Board of Directors, its Editor-in-Chief was R.W.G. Mackay and

6af'.8, Barraclough, (Hon. Sec. Round Table Group, Sydney) to Bland, inviting him to join, 22 February 1918. Bland Papers. b5F. Bland, 'rFigures, Fa1 lacies and Financett Austy,aLían HigVn'tay, Vol . 1 May to September, 1919. (Written under pseudonyn B.lvl.A.) r58. on its editorial comnittee were E.S. Jerdan and J.A. McCal1un, also tutors for the l!.E.4. and writers for the Austz,aLian Highuay. Bland assisted with editorial wo::k and with the promotion and distribution of the paper, arranging for publicity and general help to be provided from the W.E.A.'s publication services.66 The staff was honorary but the magazine soon fel1 into financial difficulty. It resisted a take- over bid fromMeredith Atkinson, now of Steadts Reuieu, but could not establish a reading public quickly enough and soon collapsed.67 None- theless, its brave manifesto remains of interest to students of Australian intel lectual endeavour:

The possibilities of Democracy are new, and the opportunities of the present immense. We feel that much can, and must be done in inforning the individual citizens in the interests of true democracy, and here the press nust lead. Can we but place in the hands of Australians a paper unafraid to grapple with world and national problerns we shall be well content.6B

It had its origi.ns in the universityrs Public Questions Society, some of whose members wanted to find a more enduring form for the stinulating discussion of issues debated there. It clained independence from the university, however, to avoid any restrai-nts associated with the P.Q.S.

Blandrs announcement of the nagazine's birth in the Austy'alian Hi.ghuay indicated its serious ambitions:

The paper will be on the lines of the Neu RepubLic, and will- contain contrj-butions by well-known writers on social, economic, political and literary topics.69 There was a youthful self-consciousness about the unlqueness of these

66G.V. Portus, ?rBland and Adult Edr-rcation , PubLic Adnnnístratíon, op cit., p. 140. 67Veu OutLook, 27 December 1922, p. 111. oatbid., editorial, Vo1. 1., 5 npiil |gz2. 69Aust;r,ali.an IJighuag, Vol. 4., nó. 1, 1 March 1922, p. 6. 1s9. post-War yeaïs - rra new world of thought and experience has arrived?t - and about their desire to be part of the avant-garde. Anong its contents were reviews of the work of Einstein, Malinowski and Pitt-

Rivers, Freud, Havelock Ellis and Margaret Sanger, James Joyce and

Nonnan Lindsay. Bland contributed two articles on "Econony and Efficiency" in public administration, F.W. Eggleston wrote on inter- national relations while A.B. Piddington reviewed the burning question of the arbitration system. Also among its pages, at the end of 1922, were two appreciations of the work and influence of R.F. Irvine, teacher and mentor of this Sydney group.

AIl this was public education, but it renlained for Bland to consolidate the foundations of his own discipline within the academy.

The universities were long learning the lesson that, in his words, what scientific teaching had done for industry could also be done for politics and civics. The obvious contrast was with North America where public admini-stration was a course of study in all major universities and where voluntary reseaïch institutions complemented such teaching with the intelligence they could furnish. Like Irvine and D"B. Copland, Bland argued the usefulness of acadenic research to the actual policy- formation of governments and municipal bodies, citing the Anerican

examples of the public relevance of the universities. The universities hacl as yet contributed very little to "the wise guidance of civic liferr in Australia and this was especially ironic in a country in which there

was so much government and so many public servants. It was surely

anomalous that in an age when every profession and vocation had its appropriate training and even the Labour movement had its own col1eges, the public servants who administer the whole state should have to equip 160 . themsclves rrin a fortuitous and haphazard manner".70

The acceptance of public administration and its professionalis- ation as a field takes us outside the period of this study but it is beyond dispute that its roots 1ie in Blandfs early work.Tl Bland did not develop his ideas in isolation but as a nenber of a then dynanic group of people who shared his concerns about the state of society and the future of denocracy. When he wrote that rfmembership of a political party evokes much greater activity than citizenship't he was pointing to a dichotomy which social theorists found profoundly disturbíng.72 To those critics of contemporary Australian society, of whon Bland was one, the ascendancy and failure of politics went hand in hand with the decay in citizenship which they believed they observed around them. It was to be expected that Bland cast his solutions for reform and progress in terms of his own social science. The proper education of public officials would advance efficiency in administration and so purify goverfnment by political parties. The whole would be made responsibe to the popular will by the pressure of an informed electorate in which it was hoped that the people could be educated to demand a moral standard in social and political behaviour. *****

70F. Bland, rtPublic Administrationr'. Review article, op. cit. p 154 and rrCity Government and Greater Sydneyr', op. cit., pp. 207-208. TIFor discussion of Blandrs later career see articfeÀ^in pubLic Administratíon, op. et)t. /zshadous and Realities, p. 164. CHAPTER 6, George Elton Moyo: Psychology ond Society 161 .

As the first in their W.E.A. series of'rauthoritative" books on

Arrstrlrlilr, Mr:rcltl itlt Atkirrson anc[ tltc Fcrlcr¿ll Cotlncil ol'thc W.ll .4. wcrc delightecl to secure George Elton l4ayors long essay, Democraeg and Freedom, written during 1918. Mayo was nevel a Director of Tutorial Classes, although he was one of the unsuccessful applicants for that position at the University of Melbourne when Atkinson resigned in 1922. Nonetheless, he was one of the key figures in the early developnent of the W. E .4. in Queensland. lr4ayors ot^rn arrival at the new university in Brisbane preceded Mansbridge's 1913 tour of the Antipodes by only two years. His interest in worker education rnade him one ofrrtwo university menrr under whose provisional guidance Mansbridge was confident in leaving the fledgling tV.E.A.1

l4ansbridge himself had presided over the fornation of the first tutorial class at the Trades Ha1l on 26 August, 1913. Thirty-five, students had responded to his cal1, had chosen economics and industrial history as their subject and organised their regular weekly neetings.

In a room provided by the university, I4ayo and A.C.V. Melbourne' a lecturer in economics and history, began the lectures in October. With Irvinefs class in Sydney, these were the first tutorial classes in Australi¿t. Mayo and l4elbourne took up the cause with enthusiasm, advising the Trades llall on courses and texts and offering their teaching as a voltrntary service. For its first few years until 1916, the W.E.A. in Queensland was in a precarious state. The l'lar and the delays in government fr¡rds for tutorial classes had resulted in a decline in attendances and in the vitality of the movement. It was

14. Nlansbridge, "Brisbane and Elsewhere", Highuay, Vol' 6, no. 61, October 1913, p. 32. 162.

only the efforts of Mayo, Melbourne and Henry Alcock which kept it alive. Alcock replaced Melbourne who volunteered for service with the first

contingent of the A.I.F. in 1g14 but when the government made money

available in 1916, Melbourne v/as able to be re-appointed after he had

been invalided home. The provision of W.E.A. tutors was linked to the

expansion of the areas of econonics and history in the university so that the grant also rnade possible the appointment of a temporary lecturer in social economics, T.c. witherby, an Anglican parson. In rgl7, with- erby was made acting-Director of Tutorial Classes but without tenure or increased salary. Prior to this, the affairs of the w.E.A. - Tutorial Classes had been managed by a Sub-Committee of the Teaching Staff which consisted of Alcock, lr4ayo, lvfelbourne and witherby and in 19I7 this

became a Joint committee of the kind set up in the other states. when Itlitherby resigned in 1921, the government firnded a full position of

Director of Tutorial classes at the propeï salary. This was filled by B.H. Molesworth, one of Qrteenslandrs first graduates, an ex-student of Tawneyrs at Oxford and a veteran w.E.A. tutor in south wales, northern

Tasmania and Broken Hi1l.2 By this tirne, Mayo was preparing to leave Brisbane and Australia.

Brisbane had seemed to Mansbridge to be particularly congenial ground for the seeds of the new worker education. The Bishop of Brisbane, Ðr Donaldson, was the brother of the vice-chancellor of cambridge university, an o1d supporter of the }V.E.A., and from

Dr Donaldsonf s pulpit lr{ansbridge had addressed a gathering of workers

2"Australian Notes,,, Highuay, yol. 6, no. 66, March 1914, p. IL2, For a full account of these developments see v. crew, r'The Beginnings of the w.E.A. in Queenslandrr , AustnaTíqn JournaL of AduLt EdtLcatioà Vo1.9, ûo. 2, pp.72-83. Melbourne returned to active service and in 1919 was appointed a full-tine lecturer in history at the University of Queensland. 163 .

and scholars from the university. To both lrfansbridge and Mayo, the

labour movenent in B::isbane appeared a virile one, an impression supported by the industrial warfare of 1912 in that city. Mansbriclge told his English readers

there is sonething in the Brisbane workers I movenent which is more inspired than the ordinary.3 He attributed the ardour to the legacy of William Lanets socialist

idealism. Mayo concluded differently - in his recollection of the same fervour, as he had experienced it at the Trades Hal1 and on Brisbane's street corners, he diagnosed the radicalism of the workers as nothing less than social pathology.

In background and experience Mayo differed considerably frorn the recognisable social and intellectual types who were attracted to the work of the W.E.A. A conparison with his partner, A.C.V. Melbourne,

suggests the point. Both Mayo and Melbourne were graduates of the

University of Adelaide. Nlayo studied philosophy and psychology under Willian Mitchell while Melbourne was a pupil of G.C. Henderson in

history. Henderson hras a student of Mansbridge's friend, A.L. Srnith of Balliol,who had been instrumental in arranging Mansbridgets

Australian tour.4 A.C.V. Melbourne was the son of an archtypal w.E.A. man, W.C. ltlelbourne. The latter was well-known as a leading official of the Printing Industry Employees Union, one of the rnore aristocratic labour unions which supported the W.E.A. The Pr"inting Trades JouwLal, of which he was acting-editor, devoted space to nost of the issues

popularised by the W.E.A.5 When the Joint Committee for Tuìorial

34. Mansbridge, "Brisbane and Elsewherett, op. eit,, pp. SI-35. 40. lt¡hitelock, The Gz.eat TradLtion: A History of AduLt Educatíon in Austy,aLia (Queensland, I974) p. L77. 5See Printíng Tz,ades JourvtaL I9I7-1950. 164

Classes was established in Adelaide, he was a foundation menber as a representative of the workers.6 A.C.V. Melbourne uras appointed to the

University of Queensland in 1913 to replace E.O.G. Shann in the teaching of econornics and history.

While Melbourne shared the more modest origins of nost of the

W.E.A. intellectuals, Elton Mayo was born, in 1880, into one of

Adelaiders established families. His grandfather, Dr. George Mayo, had arrived in the early years of the colony and his father, an engineer, had been born in Adelaide in 1845. One of six children,

Elton followed his father to Saint Peterrs College, where he gained a classical scholarship and natriculated in 1897. Had he not been a sonewhat walward son who refused to follow the medical career desired for him by his father, it ls r.rrlikely that his Adelaide sphere would ever have intersected with that of W. C. I.{elbourne. Mayor s first contact with the workers and their education occurred in London in 1903. After two unsuccessful beginnings in medicine, the first at the

University of Adelaide and the second in Edinburgh, Mayo had decided to abandon the study of physiology in favour of his interest in psychology and economics. During what appeared to his family as an idle and desultory period, he spent hj s time in London reading i-n these areas, writing a few articles for the PaLL I4aLL Gazette, and teaching advanced English to students of the Working Menrs College in Great

Ormond Street. To li'layo, this venture into worker education was the most worthwhile he had yet undertaken. It brought hin into contact wi-th men like C. M. Trevelyan, F.l\,|. Cornford and A.V. Dicey and it

6Minutes of Joint Committee for Tutorial Classes, University of Adelaide. Inaugural meeting, 4 June 1914. Records of Department of Continuing Education, University of Adelaide. 165. engendcred the interest in the worker which was fundamental to his lifers work. It also enabled him to pursue the broad inter-disciplinary reading which was the foundation and the nark of his later social thought.

According to Helen Mayo who visited her brother in London, Elton was a gifted teacher to whom the workers responded: she wrote later, the men liked him, he loved teaching and was interested in their difficulties. They looked up to hin as a man of Education which they also wanted to be but he did not appear to feel superior to them. On his side it was good ' for him to feel that he wa , valued .. .7

Mayo recalled his first excursion into worker education with the same satis faction,

as a youngster I walked into the Working Men's College and was innedi,ately taken into the confidence of the workers thenselves. They put me on every conmittee etc. possible - to such an extent that Dicey hinself interviewed rne

Abandoning a brief notion of going to Canada, Mayo returned to Adelaicle in 1904 and took up a partnership with the Adelaide printing firm of J.H. Sherring and Co. which had been arranged by his father. In 1907, however, he returned to the lJniversity to fo11ow his real

interests in philosophy and psychology under sir william Mitchell. He

7Hele.r Mayo, rrConcerning Elton Mayorr. Biographical notes, Elton Mayo Papers.P.R.G. I27/24, South Australian Archives. Also, see W.M. Kylets obituary on lt{ayo in uniuer.sitg of QueensLand Gazette, f,o. 15, Brisbane, December 1949, and L.F. Urwick, rrThe Life and Work of Elton Mayor', paper delivered to XII International lvfanagement Congress in Melbourne, 29 February, 1960. BMayo, Letters to Dorothea Mayo, 29 November 1921. Mayo Papers P.R.G. I27/)-6 S.A.A. Mayo married Dorothea McConnel in 1913. They had two daughters Patricia (b. 1915) and Gael (b. I92I). The narriage was marked by rnany long periods of separation during the Brisbane years, when Dorothea went south during sunmer months. All letters to Dorothea subsequentlv referred to are in this collection. 166.

gained a first in philosophy and the Roby Fletcher Prize in psychology, and in 1911, after a period as the David Murray Research Scholar in ethics and metaphysics, he was appointed as the foundation lecturer in the school of mental and moral philosophy at the University of Queensland. In this capacity he taught all the classes in logic, metaphysics, ethics and psychology, and gave some lectures in the theory of economics, until further appointments were made in 1914. In 1919, he was given the first chair in philosophy which he held until

1922 when he left Australia.9 His reflection on his elevation to this position provides a revealing self-perception of personal failure. IVriting to his wife, Mayo reviewed his past, looking back along the road, eight years, to the solitary devil, an acknowledged failure, travelling gloornily enough, northwards to Queensland. He had the most excellent of mothers and fathers behind him but beyond his own family very little - many acquaintances , few friends. He had tried many things - student, miner, journalist, printer - and given all up. At_the age óf tnitty, hè went to a new place to begin.l0 In fact, in 1919, Mayors real career had not even begun. The sense of uncertain fulfilment, of isolation and indirection, in these lines

causcd him finally to leave Australia at the age of forty-two, to seek yet another beginning irt the United States. His subsequent success as a pioneer in the field of industrial psychology and factory nanagenent,

9He1en lr{ayo's biographical notes; Kyle's obituary notice; and An Accot,tnt. of the uníuersity of QueensLand During íts First 25 Iears, publishecl by the Senate, 1935, pp. 28-29. l0Letter to Dorothea, 29 March, 1919. The success of Mayors brothers and sisters should be noted. His older sister, He1en, graduated fron the University of Adelaide in nedicine in IgO2, was the founder of the Mothers and Babies Health Association in 1909 and had a distinguished medical career. She gained an M.D. in 1926. IJerbert lr'layo (b. 1885) graduated in law in 1909, became K.C. in 1950, was knighted in 1948 and became a Justice of the Supreme Court in 1942. John Christian Mayo (b. 1891) also became a rnedical specialist. l4ary Penelope Mayo (b. 1889) was the author of The Lífe and Lettens of CoLoneL Wi.LLiam Líght. t67 . the fannus llawthorne enreriments associated with his name, and the rcscarch of thc gïoup which gathcred abot¡t- hin at thc llarvard Business School (to which he was appointed in 1926 and where he stayed as one of the rnost notable figures until 1947) are all part of a well-known and well-docurnented chapter in the developnent of the social sciences in industry. Although Mayots American career is beyond the scope of this study, the social theory on which his empirical research was based and which he expanded in his two books , The Human ProbLems of an Indt'ætriaL Ciuilísation (1953) and Ihe SociaL PnobLems of an IndustriaL CiuiLisation (1949), was initially worked out in his Australian years and was given its fi rst substantial publication in Democraey cnd Freedom. *****

At first glance, Democracy anÅ. Fneedom, is recognisable as a W.E.A. text; it contains all the familiar intellectual preoccupations of the W.E.A. group. Its fundamental problem was that of class conflict and the threat to the social order. It was focussed on the unhappy place of the worker in modern industrial society and on the urgency of social readjustment. It anaLysed the relation of the individual to the state and to other forms of group life and it discussed the efficacy of Australian forrns of political and legislative amelioration. It offered an evaluation of the ideological spectrum of theories of social change - the webbs, Marx, guild socialists, syndicalists and so on - and it echoed the call for the deploynent of the social sciences in the quest for social integration. In its concerns, Mayors essay appeals to fit the W.E.A. frarne of reference but a closer look at its theoretical assumptions - and at the solutions as yet only gerninating in this early work - reveals a radically different set of propositions. In the breadth of its intellectual contact and the startling transitions it nakes, Mayors essay was distinctive and original. In its long-rut 168. irnplications, it also challenged the whole rationale of movernents like the W.E.A.

In the period in which Mayo had been student, teacher and writer, critical eyes were being cast everywhere on the shortconings of denocracy. The discourse ranged from those who were disillusioned with the mechanics of democratic government, in particular with political parties, to those who were pessimistic about the capacities of the people to act rationally in choosing their representatives. Mayo drew on all this debate, adding to his reading of Burke, T.H. Green and J.S. Mill. He had absorbed the critj.ques of a wide range of political thinkers: Ernest Barker, Viscount Bryce, Gierke and Maitland, Henry

Maine, G.D.H. Cole, the Webbs, Graham Wa11as and C.F. Masternan among the British theorists; Tarde and Le Bon in France, Ostrogorski in

Russia, and C.E. Ellwood, Woodrow Wilson, Brooks Adams in America. He for.md that many of his ideas were shaped by his reading but he believed that he had something to contribute to the cliscussion on the nature and future of dernocracy. He ruefully reflected on the difficulty of being ori ginal ,

I am quite hopeful since I believe that the criticism of actual conditions I propose has not yet been done - but the line the book quoted takes is so nearly nine that I nust be sure I do not seem to plagiarize.Il

The criticisrn which he proposed went beyond a critique of the workings of dernocratic government and it was not satisfied with MiI1's worries about the rule of 'rcollective mediocrityrrnor with the pessirnì-srn of the irrationalists about the crowd-mind. Mayo argued that the whoLe lllettet to Dorothea, 4 April 1919. Irlayo is referring here to Ernest Barkerts Polítical Thought from Spencer to Today in which he says that he found his own ideas expressed to some extent in the last chapter - trso little is one originalr'. 169

concept of nodern dernocracy was miscast because the political science fron which it was derived, that of indivi rhralist liberalism, had itself misconstrued the nature and organisation of society. writers from Bentham to Mill, he believed, had seen so'ciety as a collection of

individuals or an "anarchy of persons" which had no unanimity except

that which could only be expressed through the state. He saw it as an irony that such a political philosophy which had sought to locate authority beyond the state in the social will should finally be conf,ronted with ever-expanding state control and the hegemony of politics. The I'structurelesstr noclel of society implied in individualist Iiberalism and in laissez-faire capitalism had led in his opinion to a false identification of the social will with the ballot box, and to the equating of social structure with the organisation of political parties. Politics and the state had thus come to distort the original aims of democracy and to ignore the human and social relationships which he believed had evolved historically with the progress of civilisation and which constituted the true nature of society.

T.H. Greents dictun that'rwil1 not force is the basis of the staterr occupied a central place in Mayots political theory as it did in the thinking of most contemporary Liberals. The problem Mayo posed, however, was how far the present form of democracy did embody or cultivate the general wi11. This was the basic question of Democraey and Ey,eedom. Mayo never questioned the trrderlying premise of democracy - that the authority of government derives from a source beyond itself - but he argued that the source had been nisinterpreted and the result r¡ras a confusion between the two terms dernocracy and freedom. Both terns were possessed by every cause, especially during the hlar, and Mayo set out to ask if the two were synonymous. Did the one, a political order, r70 . necessaïily engender the other, a personal and social state? To what extent did political forms aid or inhibit the freedom that was the true end of social growth? Was social growth an achievement of governrnents? To these questions Mayo answered in the negative, adopting

Henry l{ainers view that freedom was a social enfranchisement which was to be gained outside the realm of politics as defined in the action of governnents.

lvlayo's rejection of the assunptions which he believed informed

contemporary democracy required an alternative social model. The nodel he put forward was one of social integration: society, he argued, hras an aggïegation of groups collaborating in an understood and communal purpose which welded the social whole. It was characterised by historic forms of systematic co-operation which the liberal philosophers had failed to perceive. This faiture had led to the false concept of society as an atignment of classes, of masters and men, whose hostility

ancl competition, had so faT tended only to social disintegration.

Instead, lvlayo offered a world in which work was not the basis of class conflict but the opportunity for constructive social function. Work, according to Mayo, determined the individual's psychological orientation towards the world: the way in which each of us sees the world is determined in the main by the occupational group which claims us as a member. I 2

Membership of that group involved participation in social custom, inherited tradition, transmitted skills and asigned roles, all of

which endowed the worker with a sense of frsocial fl-mctionrr:

l2E. I,Iayo, Democracg and Freedom, (lr{acmil1an, Melbourne 1919) p. 37. 17T

It must be possible for the individual to feel, as he works, that his work is socially necessary; he must be able to see beyond his group to the society. Failure in this respect will nake disintegration inevitable. Social unity must be a conscious r.rnity, known and recognised by every group and individual; the alternative is disruption. The occupational aspect of social activity is, therefore, fundanental 13 If the social community is a web of such occupational groups, then its health and degree of civilisation is measured in terms of the collabor- ation of those groups. Castc and c1ass, he argued, must be subsumed into community of interest and purpose and the best motivation to collaboration, and therefore social harmony, is the sense of social function.

In the light of this social mode1, lr4ayo affirmed that freedom and growth was characteristic of the social life of the community in its

many associations and groups - it was not a character of the state. In fact the present democracy, he wtote, has done nothing to help society to unanimity, nothing to aid the individual to a sense of social function. I+

Democracy, shaped by industrialisn and individualism, had deprived man of his ability to see beyond his work to his society and the consequence

was social conflict and disorder. He quoted the work of the Hammonds on the evils of industrialism to illustrate how the nineteenth century

commercial system had left the worker bereft of any personal autonomy or social puïpose and also how laissez-faire econornics had overwhelmed the social function of industry. It followed in Mayo's logic, therefore, that if the consciousness of social function were essential to social order then the task before theorists and social sci.entists was to

13ÍbLd., p. 37 and Mayo "The Australian Political Consciousness'r in lvl. Atkinson, Austnalia, EcononrLc anÅ poLitical StudLes, (Macnillan, London 1920, p. L29). (This essay forms part of Democz'aey and Fv'eedom and was probably written first.) 14E . l'layo, Democracy and Fv'eedoft, p . 44 . 172 discover how to restore this sense in a rnodern industrial society. As lvlayo stated it,

when fworkt signifies intelligent collaboration in the achievernent of a social purpose, tindustrial tlrrestI will cease to be.15

The remedies for social disharmony in the contenporary denocratic statc weTe as misguided as the theories from which they stemmed. Reliance upon the state to unify society led, in Mayors opinion, to another false conclusion - that political means were the only routes to reform or developnent. Like Heaton and Atkinson, Mayo judged the alienation of classes and the dominance of politics to be I'more conplete in Australia than in other countr.iesrr, and the resort to political remedy to be rnore advanced. He agreed with then that Australian forms of amelioration such as the arbitration systen served only to stereotype

and harden social division. He was profoundly disillusioned with the level of political behaviour which he observed around hin and concluded that the people's will was more exploited by its representatives than given authentic voice: the orgy of politically-manufactured and irrelevant passion which marks an election is a measure of the debasement of democracy. Our nominal polj-tical liberty has becone an actual servitude to all that is intã11ectually futile and emotionally base.16 Furthermore, the Australian identification of political party with

economic interest had sharpened class differences to an almost irreconcilable point. He cited the railway strike of 1917 as an exanple of the manner in which political division exacerbated industrial difficulties and, as he saw it, the issue of conscription had been

rsfbid., p 60 L6rbid., p 27 t73 inflamed by the same confusion. In Australia, the important distinctions tlrat were useful in laissez-fai're policy - the distinction between the political and the econonic - had been hopelessly lost.

The "spontaneous growthrr towards collaboration and social unity which, Mayo argued, must be recovered in industrial society could not be nourished by legislation or regulation. No increase in wages or improvernent in working conditions through governnent intervention or arbitration could, in his view, atone rtfor the loss of all autonomy and of all sense of functis¡rr.17 Nor would schemes of social reconsttuction such as socialisn or guild socialisrn touch the root of the problem because their solutions promised only to strengthen the hegenony of politics. Mayo agreed with Cole that a nechanistic capitalisn had taken

away aII right to intelligent self-direction from the worker but he was critical of Colefs proposed solutions. He applauded CoIefs plea for collaboration within industry but he rejected the ideas of industrial

dernocracy and quasi-parliamentary machinery for the control of industry.

Atong with social function, tr,layo prized the preservation of skill and the need for efficiency in organisation and both, he feared, would be jeopardised by political democracy operating in industry: the highest ski1l shoutd be sovereign rather than I B the opinion of 'collective mediocrity' .

In Democracy and Freedom, and in the fragment of it which he published in Atkinsonts AustraLia essays entitled trThe Australian Political Consciousness'r,.I4ayors critique was largely negative and gave no clear indication of how such a state of spontaneous collaboration

17E. Mayo, "The Australian Political Consciousness", P. 133; Democracy and Freedom, p. 4l; and pp. 42-50 on arbitration. ]BE. Mayo, Democracg anÅ Freedofi, P.57; on Cole, see pp. 55-60. t74 . was to be re-achievecl. He spoke of finding a modern counterpart to laissez-faire, without the evils of indiviclualist competition, which would "set each industrial function free to do its best for societyrr. 19 He was definite that the answer lay outside politics and legislation but as yet he could not go beyond a vague faith in human nature:

human nature may be trusted to work out a gradual solution once the attenpt to find political nostruns and ad hoc remedies is abandoned.20

What Democï.aaA and Freedom contrlbuted to the debate on democracy uras an anthropological dinension which extended the pluralist conception of society derived from Gierke, Maitland and Cole, and familiar to all the W.E.A. intellectuals as a preferred social model. The idea of the functional community which was at the heart of Mayots sociological theory in Democy,acy and" Freedom was more fu1ly developed in his two subsequent books, and his debt to social anthropologists rnore fully acknowledged. This concept of social function is elaborated ín The

Social ProbLems: In these simpler commr.rnities every individual r¡rderstands the various economic activities ancl social functions, and, in greater: or less degree, participates in them' The bonds of family and kinship (rea1 or fictitious) operate to relate every person to every social occasion; the ability to cooperate effectively is at a high Ievel. The situatj-on is not sj-mply that the society exercises a powerful compulsion on the individual; on the contrary, the social code and the desires of the individual are, for all practical purposes, identical. Every member of the group participates in social activities because i f is tris cñi.ér desiie to do so. 21

In his later work lulayo makes clear his debt to the social anthropologists, especially Malinowski, G. Pitt-Rivers, A.R. Radcliffe-Brown and W. Lloyd

retbíd., p. 49. 2-o tbid. , p. so. zrE. Mayo, The SoaLaL ProbLems of an Indusl;riaL CiuíLísation, (London, 1975, first published 1949) p. 5. This passage is based upon Mayots reading of Frederic Le P1ay. 175

Warner; he also draws on Le Play and Durkheim explicitly on the consequences of industrial and social change.22 Nonetheless, the main ideas of an historic, evolving social growth, of collaborative function and of the disintegrating effects of industrialism were present in his earlier work. His friendship with lt{alinowski and with Pitt-Rivers also pre-dated his Anerican career, and although Mayo does not cite their work in his early essays it is plausible to speculate on their influence. It is certainly demonstrable that these men were impressed by Mayors work and intrigued to find, as Malinowski put it, such an interesting scientific mind in a new sub-tropical university in the

Antipodes.23 Malinowski cane to Australia, and to New Guinea, as the secretary to Section H, Anthropology, of the British Association for the Advancement of Science on its visit in 1914. He spent six nonths then in New Guinea and the Trobriand Islands, returning there in 1915-16 and in 1917-18. Malinowskirs paper to the British Association in 1914 discussed I'A Fundamental Problen of Religious Sociology", quoting Durkheim on the distinction between the sacred and the profane.24 Whether Mayo heard this talk is unrecorded - he was listed as a member of the Association and in 1914 his own interest in psychology and religion, generated under Willian Mitchell at Adelajde University, was demonstrated in the lectures and talks he gave on the subject to the Anglican Church Conference and the Student Christian Social Union.25 It is probable that

228. Mayo, The Humqn ProbLems of an fndustriaL CiuiLísation, (New York, i960, first published 1933) Ch. VI and Ch. VII. 23Recounted by l.{ayo in Letter to Dorothea, 9 March 1918. 2+Repoz,t of the Eightg-Fouv,th Meeting of the British Associatòon for the Aduancement of Scienee, AustraLía 1914. (London, 1915) pp. 534-555. zrE. Mayo, rtletter of Application to the University of Otago for the Chair of Mental and Moral Philosophy'r, 12 Novenber 1913 lists lectures and address on religious topics during I9L2-I3, e.g. to Theological Co1lege, "Religion and Psychology" Presbyterian Ments Society, rtThe Ft¡rction of Religious Servicesrr Australian Church Congress, "The Attitude of Philosophy to Religionil Student Christian lJnion, rrThe Inadequacy of Pragnatismil I'Religion and Religious Servicestr rrThe Divinity of Christ'r. 176.

Mayo met Malinowski in 1914 and became his host when Malinowski was en route to the Trobriand Islands. In his Diary, Malinowski recorded their conversations during his visits: At the Infayots, heroic intervention in discussion of religion. Then we talked about politics and his activity among workers.26

On Malinowskirs death in 1942, Mayo recalled

In Queensland he used to stay with us in the intervals of his Trobriand work - and indeed nany of the ideas of his original work were first alluded to and discussed with Doiothea and mYself.27 Ir{alinowski was excited about Mayots work and offered hin encouragernent in his letters; he urged him to take leave fron Brisbane and go down to Melbourne in order to pursue it.28 At the end of 1919, Mayo resurned his friendship with Malinowski in lr{elbourne, staying with hin in what he described as the "slavonic squalor" of his rooms in Grey St., and working with him at the Public Libraty.zg His other rnain contact on this visit to l{etboulne was Meredith Atkinson who was engaged in promoting the publication of Nlayors work with Macmillans.

Mayo made the acquaintance of another social anthropologist,

Captain George Pitt-Rivers, also on his way north to field-work in

Papua and the Bismarck Archipelago, in 1921. Pitt-Rivers, invalided out of the \,lar, had been a'ïesearch student under McDougatl at Oxford in psychology and anthropology and he had come to Australia as a member of the Governor-Generalfs staff. He too was surprised to find work of

268. Malinowski, A Díary in the Striet Sense of the Ter,n, (London 19 67) p. 108 and p. 178 refer to correspondence with the Mayos. It is interesting to note that the editor has not identified the Mayos as he has rnost of Malinowski's other contacts in the Diary. 2TLetter to Flerbert Mayo, 18 Ju¡re 1942. P.R.G. I27/I7, Mayo Papers, S.A.A 2Sletter to Dorothea, 9 March 1918. 2gLetter to Dorothea, r.rndated, probably summer vacation 1919-20 written from Malinowskirs room in the Public Library, Melbourne. 177 . the type and quality of Mayors in so remote a place, while Mayo for his part welcomed the diminution of his isolation that such encounters represented. He wrote qf Pitt-Rivers,

What I feel is that he, like Malinowski, is very quick to jump to the conclusion that rny work is of value. They both cane to this conclusion before they knew what my work was like. In my case I think I have a new friend. It was rather exciting.30

When Mayo did takc leave in Melbourne in 1922, he developed his contact with Pitt-Rivers when both gave lectures in a series for the Victoria League at the Assembly Ha11 during the wjnter. Atkinson also participated in the series and there was suggestion of the lectures being published with a Preface by Mayo. Pitt-Rivers' paper on "Prirnitive Communisn,and its Relation to Modern Developrnents in Russia and Elsewhereil bore relation to the themes of Mayofs work, as he explained it in an appendix to Mayo: The chief moral of course being that it is as mischievous and futile to force individualism on primitive natives still psychologically capable of communism and therefore stil1 within the limits of their organisation socially integrated, as it is futile and rnischievous to try and force communism upon a community psychologically no Longer capable of it, the only result being further disintegration in a pseudo-conrntmistic organisation which is rea1ly an intensification of individualism arising out of democracy. Perhaps it may suit you to dot thð eye of this conclusion?3]

The conjunction of political and economic theory and social anthropology in Mayors critique of democTacy introduced a new set of ideas into any Australian discussion of the subject but it must not

obscure the fact that Democr¿acA and Fneedom was, before aI 1 else, the work of a psychologist and that it was Mayo, the psychologist, who

3oletter to Dorothea, 4 April 1921. 3lG. pitt-Rivers to Mayo, 2 JuIy 1922. This letter accornpanies an abstract of the lecture, intended for publication in a proposed book which did not eventuate. Mayo Mss. File 3085, Baker Library, Graduate School of Business Administration, Hatvard Univers,i-ty. L78 intcrestccl Malinowski ancl Pitt=Rivers. It was to the new social science of appliecl psychology that Mayo looked for the solutions to problems diagnosed in his theory.

*t*rk*

Before the War, Mayo had studied and taught the principles of psychology which were then treated as part of the broad catchment of philosophy, metaphysics and togic. His reading of Willian Janes had led him to a school of French nedical men connected with the Salpetrière Hospital in Paris, among them Charcot, Binet and, in particular, Pierre Janet. These men weïe engaged in nedical psychology rather than in philosophy, just as Fr:eud and Jung we1.e devising techniques for the investigation of the mind in order to validate theory. Mayo learned from all of these: his notion of the rrmental hinterland't owed nuch to Janetrs work with neurosis, hysteria and obsessive thinking and to Janetrs concept of sanity.32 While not a Freudian in doctrine, Mayo found the techniques of psychoanalysis of both Freud and Jung useful

in his own ventures into medical psychology.33 In England, practical classes in experimental psychology had been conducted at Cambridge since the end of the nineties by another pioneer of anthropology, W'H'R' Rivers, who then applied his expertise to investigating the Torres Strait Islanders.34 The llar provided a great stimulus to psychological research in presenting the challenge of War neuroses and shell-shock as well as requiring inquiry into the psychological factors affecting the

32see E. Mayo, The PsychoLogp of Pierre Janet, (London 1952, published posthumously). Mayo lnakes clear the influence of Janet in all his writings. 33E. Uãyo, lecture to Victorian Branch of the British Medical Association on "psythology in Relation to Psychoanalysis and Applied Psychologyr', 24 Febrtary 7SZZ, MedicaL JourmaL of Australia, April 1922, no.13. 34Se" W.H.iì. Rivers PsychoLogg anã. EthnoLogA, (London L926) esp. Introduction. r79 o¡tput of nunitions. Rivers and his pupi1, Dr Charles Myers, conducted research on war neuïoses in British Military Hospitals. Myers went on at the end of the ltlar to develop the field of industrial psychology in Britaín, which flowed out of the Health of lvlunition Workers Commlttee formed in 1915 (later, in 1919, the Industrial Fatigue Research

Board) .35

All of these strands - experirnental psychology, waT neuroses and industrial fatjgue lesearch - coalesced in Mayof-s own charting of the industrial territoTy. To his study of James, Janet, Freud and Jung,

Mayo had added some experimental practice of psychoanalysis in a part- time and infornal collaboration with a Brisbane physician, Dr Mathewson. FIis patients includeci shelI-shock cases as well as otherrrneutasthenics" who came to them as their reputation spreacl. Mayo believed that he and

Mathewson were perhaps the first to begin therapeutic practice of this kind in Australia - their methods included rrfree associationrt tests to elicit childhood memories, dream analysis and hypnosis.36 During 1919

and 1920 Nlayo became very excited about clinical work. Hj-s courses

began to show tl're subordination of philosophy to the practice of psychology as he included demonstrations of the methods of Freud and

Jung in l-ris lectures.37 He was in particular interested in the nature of nervous breakdown and the re-achievement of sanity. He believed that sanity was to be equated with the indivj-dualrs capacity to master his

35For a cliscussion of the development of industrial p-sychology and industrial management in Britain see John Child, BrLtish Ìulanngement fhought, (London 1969) . 36feiter to Dorothea, 6 April 1919. Ser¡eral letters during this nonth describe various cases trèated by lvlayo and lr{athewson. In Melbourne Dr J.W. Springthorpe had been treating ttthe psychologi-ca1 factor in disease" before the war and was in charge of AustraLian war neuroses in England where he exchanged ideas and experience with other authorities such ás Myers. See MeúLcaL Jouv,naL of Austz'aLia no. 14,October 1919 for J.W. Springthorpe, rrWar Neuroses and Civil Practicerr. 3Tletter to Dorothea, 3 March 1921. 180 . environmcnt and himself ¿rnd that neglected capacitics do not disappear but live on "in the dark background" of the mind causing anxiety, fear and dangeto.rs dirratisfactions. The nind has areas over which the individual has little contlol as evidenced by day-dreaming, or what Janet calledrreverier, and the sane man is one who can maintain the equilibrium between the realm of his conscious trconcentratedr? thinking and the phantasy world of his uncontrolled "dispersedrt thinking. Those unable to hold this balance aïe prey to obsessions, neuroses and hys- teria. 3B

Early in 1921, lr{ayo withdrew from the practice with Mathewson.39

The University of Queensland continued the work, howevet, when a research chair of medical psychology was endowed by the British Red Cross in 1921.

Mayo clained that this was the result of his pleas for funds to support the investigation of war-shock, neulasthenia and kindred rnental disorders.40 lvlayo himself turned his attention to the application of his theory and his experience to the field of industry, seeking the relationship between the unconscious operations of the mental hinter- land and the social phenornena of industrial unrest. Mayo argued that the forces which produced both civilisation and anarchy took their

rise in the human mincl and that it was therefore necessary to understand the well-springs of behaviour. Politicat palliatives, wages rises, the

3BE. lr4ayo, ttlndustrial Unrest and rNervous Breakdownr rt in IndustriaL AustraLian and Miníng Standand, patt 2 of the series on I'Industrial Peace and Psychological Research", 12 January 1922, pp. 63-64. rnight-mindr See also "The Irrational Factor in Human Behaviourtr - the in Industry" in AnnaLs of the Amey,ican Acaderny of' PoLíticaLand SocLaL Science, Vol. 108, Novernber 1923, pp. II7-130 and E. Mayo, "Civilised Unreasont? in Har.pez.ts I'Iagazine, Vol. cxlviii, Decembet 1923, pp. 527-535. 39letter to Dorot.hea, 25 lr{arch, I92I. 40letter to Dorothea, 10 November 1921 refers to the university treating his leave ungenerously even after getting ÍtO,OOO'ras a result of my workrr. See also Kylers obituary which endorses this point. The chair was filled by Dr J.P. Lowson in 1921. 181 . panacea of worker participation or worker control, or the enlightened measutfes of welfare pïoposals could not touch the roots of what Mayo deerned to be naladjusted behaviour: Industrial unrest is not caused by mere dissatis- faction with wages and working conditions but by the fact that a conscious dissatisfaction serves to tlight up' 4s it were the hidden fires of mental uncontrol.4l

The human imationality which he observed in industrial discontent was closely akin to that which he had seen in shel1-shock victims.

He drew an analogy between the successful tTeatment of war neuroses and the potential correction of industrial conflict. The research in military hospitals was reinforced by what had been learned by Myers and others about the problems of fatigue and monotony in munitions productíons.42 He concluded that in sport, in waï, and in work it is morale, the mental factor, which in the last resort deternines every issue .4 3 Only the techniques of psychology could reach the discontents in the 'ltwilightrrareas of the nind and could repair danaged industrial morale.

In a series of articles fo-r The Austv'aLian fndt'ætr"LaL ond I'fining Standar.d, edited by Ambrose Pratt, lr{ayo explored further the connections

between his social theory, his psychology and the industrial problen.

A,s Demoeracy and Freedom had made cIear, Mayo saw the individual as a

menber of society and as a worker but this did not mean that he recognised

tNervous 4lE. Mayo, 'rlndustrial Unrest and Breakdown"', f .A. & M.S' , 12 January 1922, p. 64. 428. Ir{ayo, "The lirational Factor in Human Behaviourl', AnnaLs of the America-L Aeadenry, op. cit., p. 125: rrf was guided in my first approach by experi".tce oi psychopathological clinic and 'she11-shockt hospital. Tire event proved that there is an extraordinary resemblance between a 'she1t-shock'hospital and a factory where the norale or will to co- operate is low. fn a factory where the rnorale is low the incidence of hysteria is high. 4 38. Mayo, "Civilisation and Nloralett, r.A. & M.5., 5 January 1922, p. 16. t82. hin as a member of a working c1ass. Class to Mayo was a wrongly conceived, divisive and dangerous category to which he gave no analytical significance. He sought to dissolve the class concept in his alternative social constTuct and to supplant it with a notion of social function. Again, he advanced the thesis that to achieve social integration, the worker must have a consciousness, not of cIass, but of the value of his work in the social pattern. He defined this sense of social function as a trpsychological orientationrr towards his work, a disposition or a I'morale" which was not rationally exerted by the individual but was located in his subconscious. In a pre-industrial world the sense of social function had been traditionally deternined

and expressed in communal purpose, but the modern worker, enslaved in industry and perceiving his work-p1ace as the scene of class war, had lost touch with his social function, and Mayo would say, with reality itself. Psychological research must and could discover what industrial civilisation was doing to the worker; it must understand the hidden ïesentments irr the I'subrnerged nentality" of men which would, if unchecked, finally wreak vengeance upon the whole social order. The immediate problem was to evaluate the symptoms of unrest such as sabotage, strikes and the inability to work steadily, in order to find the deeper causes

of thc maIady.44

lr4ayo had derived much from the ideas of French crowd-psychologists

like Le Bon who argued that non-rational factors predominated in human thinking and collective behaviour.45 He felt hc had observed the irrational at work in Australian political situations such as the

conscription crisis, or the Queensland etection of March 1918. This had

44see Mayofs five articles published in 'rThe Sociological Departnentt' of the f.A. & M.S.o January-February 1922. 45see Democracg and Fneedom, pp. 25-30 for the discussion on the election and pp. 31-35 for comment on 'irrationalistt theory. 183 . provided hin with empirical field-work as he wrote Demoeracy and FTeed.om. IIe noted ¿rt the tirnc,

Assunring that an electorate at election time was 'psychaðthenicr (as neurasthenic) I applied my variation oi Jrrttg's rnethod and discovered that the Nationalists lost bãcause in the endeavour to be logical they took no account of the 'phobias' (anxiety-neuroses) motivated from the runconsciousr (Jungrs words, not nine). This of course suggested at once a companion volume to Machiavellirs rPrincer entitled "The Politicianrr' I have two sides of a foolscap sheet covered with notes - and it will go very well with the French crowd- ^'electorálpsychology (an improvement on it) as a chapter on psychasthenia and twilight thinkingt (or something of that sort) in the book to be.*o

He agreed that of the great majority of men it may be saj-d that their motives are largely determined by feeling and i rrati ona I i ty4 7 but he clid not share the ultinate pessimism and despair of the irration- alists. The work of Freud and Jung and his own clinical experience had

convincecl him that while irrationality existed and moved the behaviour of men, it did not follow that man was doomed never to be rational'

He argued instead that civilisation was progressive rationalisation or nothing - that democracy, as al present constituted, exaggerates the irrational in man and is therefore an anti-social and decivilising force.4B

Mayo declared human unreason to be as much open to inquiry as anyother social fact, his basic premise being that sanity was a condition that was continr.rally achieved in civilised society.49 Psychological research

46Letter to Dorothea, ldarch 1918. 478. Mayo, "Civilisation and Moralè", oP. cit. a8Letter io Dorothea, lr'larch 1919 recounts an argument in Sydney on the subject of human rationality. Mayo writes from the Wallangara Canp in N.S.W. where he altd Witherby were in quarantine during the influenza epidemic. q9S"" E. Mayo, 'rCivilised Unreason", Harperts Magazine, VoI. 148, Decem- ber 1925 and "The Great Stupiditylt, Harpers Magazine' Vo1. 151,.Iune- November 1925. 184 wor¡lrl írssist tnltnrs cal)írcity to bc rntion¿l I nlorc ef l'cc:tivcly thalt any reliance upon a priori theory about human nature.

Mayo believed that in all this he was working towards the discovery of the rrpsychological causes making for revolutionrr since he identified the forces which made for social upheaval with those which produced rnental breakdown. In his hypothesis, ol]t dominated by irration- -!o_s,e ality readily responded to 'rsuggestions of revolutionary destruction".50 The agitator and the revolutionary were in his opinion as nuch the victins of disorientation as any otheT neurotic. His psychological profile of the agitator was expticitly based on his experience in Brisbane with the extreme supporters of the I.W.W. He recalled rnore than once that during his work for the W.E.A., the back rows of meetings were ,hauntedl' by the representafives of the irreconcilable left, nen nwithout any sense of hurnourt' who posed implacable opposition to the university's attempts to educate the workers. lvlayo followed the¡n closely and claimed to be on faniliar terms with them. He categorised then as social isolates, incapable of easy human relationships, and unable to conveïse except on the I'compelling topicrr of revolution. They regarded the world as hostile, weïe suspicious of all leadership

and were always in a state of crisis induced by fears of conspiracy.

When one of the agitators sought medical help (no doubt from Dr Mathewson,

although Mayo does not narne hin) it was ïevealed under psychoanalysis that his resistance to authority and his i.nability to hold a job could be traced to a miserable childhood and a drunken brutal father who had forced the child to frightened night-wanderings in the stleets.

50E. l,,layo, "The lrlind of the Agitator'r, f .A. & M.5., 19 January L922, p. 111. 185.

Psychological treatment 1ed to the patient's recovery and to changes in his personality and his attitude to society. According to Mayo, he gave up his resentrnents, his former political associates, and his revolutionary activities.5l This case-study encouÏaged Mayo to generalise the nental state, the infantile history and the social incapacities of revolutionaries. They weTe, he concluded, very unhappy people and were rrusually communistsr'. In 1922 he speculated that the Australian LabourParty was burdened with many such agitators'52

Nfayots definition of the revolutionary as neurotic' as one whose I'reality" 'rphantasyr' life dominated his thinking, left 1itt1e room for the intellectual, economic oï mo1.al validity of any revolutionary ideology. His psychological cletermination reduced ideology to phantasy

compensation: To any working psychologist, it is at once evident that the g"nei"t theories of Socialism, Guild Socialisn, Anarchism and the like are very largely the phantasy , constructions of the neurotic,53

The appeal which revolutionary ideas had for the workel could also be explained in terms of the loss of social function. The worker was

unaware of the deeper causes of his alienation and was therefore vulnerable to the revolutionaryfs conspiracy charges against the capitalist. Ile was easily seduced by the illusions of control which systems such as socialism appeared to offer him. Thus, lr4ayo confidently

asked, WhatelseisSocialisnbutanendeavourtoregaina-, lost sense of significance in the scherne of things?5+ *****

slfbid.. See also Mayo, The PsychoLogg of Pierz'e Janet, pp. 10-16 where Mayo recalls his experience of these men during his w.E.A. work. 52'n. uayo, rrThe I'lind of the Agitatoft, op. cít. u "fb'Ld. s4E. U.yo, rrThe Will of the Peop1err, f .A. & M.5., 26 Januaty 1922, p' 160' 186 .

In the years before he left Australia, Mayo devoted much of his efforts to the promotion of psychological research into industrial unrest. This was the thene of talks to bodies fron the Advertising Menrs Institute to the Brisbane Trades Ha11; he held conversations with nenbers of the Chanbers of Cornrnerce and Manufactures urging their support. 55 He took his message to the Churches when he was invited to address the Anglican Church Conference in Sydney in 1921. The bishops had gathered to deliberate on the church's role in relation to the trSocial and Industrial Problemt'. In conmon with most of Mansbridgets followers,Mayo was an Anglican and a frequent attender at the Cathedral. lle held that the individual must have an rforientation to the Universe, beyond the present to the Infinite",56 but he had reservations about the churchesr failure to understand the human material with which they dealt. He suggested to the bishops that the current political and industrial system served to intensify mental instability and, consequently, social disintegration and he argued that those like themselves who would pursue social harmony nust not neglect the forces which lurked in the dark background of the mind: our social, political and industrial institutions must ultimately be based upon the scientific under- standing of human nature and of the hurnan mind. And yet, as a society, we make no co-ordinated attempt to study psychology and to apply the findings of psychology to the human problems befor: us.57

He related the increase in unhappiness and nental breakdown which he

55letter to Dorothea, I June lg2l. 56letter to Dorothea, 27 March 1921 recounts a long conversation with Dr Mathewson on religion. In his letters mention is often nade of visits to Cathedral and contact with Anglican bishops. sTMayof s address reported ín Sydney MorwtrEHenaLd,23 Jrrtr" lg2l. Other W.E.A. men asked to speak were B.H. Molesworth and G.V. Portus. r87. discerned in society to the decline in the influence of the church.

Asked to deliver the second Douglas Price Memorial Lecture to cornmemor- ate the leader of Brisbanets progressive Christianity movernent (Meredith

Atkinson had given the first) Mayo chose as his topic "Psychology and Religion", Teconmending that the churches should avail thenselves of the knowledge provided by psychology and anthropology. These social sciences could help the churches to distinguish between what he cal1ed mentally

-sound and mentally unsound religion.5B In his own psychoanalytic cases, he had uncovered the destructive effects of unsound religion in the ernphasis on such things as sin, guilt and punishment which he believed could produce neurosis.59 Mayo found, therefore, that failure in religion stemmed fron the same ignorance and rnisconceptions which afflicted politics and industry - the inability to understand what real1y notivated human behaviour.

In a final lecture in Melbourne in 1922, Mayo re-stated his thesis about the 'rfunctional disorders of civilisationrt. The problen of the rage expre-ssed in industrial conflict was a human one and its resolution must 1ie through the understanding of the interaction between the mind of the individual and his work: Research should not begin with politics. It should begin rvith factory, production, trade. Difficulties should be investigated and classified and then be un- necessary if research were undertaken.60

5BE. Mayo, PsyehoLogg and ReLigion, Douglas Price Memorial Lecture, (Macrnillan, Melbourne) 1922. 59Severa1 of Mayots letters contain accounts of his psychological treat- ment of particular cases, in particular, the intense therapy work with three of his wifers sisters. One example was his sister-in-law, Barbara, who had I'a compulsion neurosis with the conviction of sin (repressed) naking religion horrj-ble, God an avenger and Sundays impossible't. He described how association tests and the investigation of her infantile period finally brought back a rrvision of an Avenging God't she had at nineteen under an anaesthetic - a so-called ether-vision. Letter to Dorothea,22 Jwrc 192I. 60Lecture given under the auspices of the Melbourne University Association entitled "Social Psychologytt , Argus, 5 July 1922, 188

Mayo arguc

munitions in Queen-sland. The issue at the time was the harnessing of local Tesources and labol¡r to the making of shrapnel shell in order to

secure both the maxirnum output and the rninimum dislocation to local industry, This raised the contToversial questions of the control of labotrr, of negotiations with the trade unions, and of centralisation in

the management of war industries. Mayo was in favour of central organised planning to obtain efficiency, but he emphasised the irnportance of collaboration on the part of individuals in the war effort rather than the conpulsion of 1abour.62 The debate on conscription also focr¡ssed the tension between collaboration and organisation which Mayo

6tE, lvlayo. "The Irrational Factor in Human Behaviour", oP.. .it.' p. \29. 628. tvtayo (unsigned) , Some considetatíons Affecting organisatíon for' l;he productíon of tüe lh,¿nitíons of llav, anð Industv'i'aL }r'ganisation artd the Cost of tnlar, two panphlets wlitten for the University of Queensland War Cornrnittee by Mayo, 1915. P.R.G. I27/26 l''layo Papers' S.A.A. 189. confTonted in all his later work. He tried to define the conscription issue as one of organisation in the quest for efficiency, He was not h"ppy with the element of compulsion by political means because, in his view, it was not possible to organíse the general will effectively if it did not already exist: the force which noves a man to seek the general interest cones from uithin: if the individual or the nation has no desire to undertake a plain duty then the application of compulsion will effect little.63

He plainly thought the vote should have been rrYestr and he was interested in the motivation of those who said rrNorr but in the end the ultimate issue remained unresolved in his argunent that conscription should be based on popular consent rather than imposed by politicians. The central question was germinating here, however: how to re-create and to organise the collaborative forces in rnen that were by his definition I'spontaneous" rather than voluntary? There was no simple nostalgi-c, arcadian note in lr'layors plea for the restoration of the impulses of the co-operating comnunity. He did not urge a return to the past but a way of adapting to the industrial present. The agents of adaptation, of adjusting the worker to his society, were to be the industrial sociologists and psychologists.

The distinction between spontaneous and voluntary behaviour in

Mayors theory is what logically separated him fron the core idealism of the W.E.A. movement. Certainly, he was an energetic participant in the cause, serving on the Joint Comnittee and giving lectures at the

Trades Ha11 until the eve of his departure from Brisbane. When the tutorial classes came under socialist fire in 1919 from those who wanted

63E. Mayo, "The Referendum and After", unidentified newspaper report, P.R.G. I27/26 Mayo Papers, S.A.A. 190 to transform the systern into a Workersr Col1ege, Mayo rallied to support Atkinson and lVitherby in the struggle to defend the universityrs role in worker education. He contributed a long public lecture series on psychology to boost the universityrs standing. 'rlt is no joke beíng a professor in a younger university, keen again on extension workt', he confided to his wife at the height of the turmoil within the W.8.4.64

When he left Brisbane, the AustraLtan Highuay recorded its thanks for a decade of his involvement:

only those who have an intinate knowledge of the history of the W.E.A. in this state can appreciate to the full the services rendered to the Itr.E.A. by Professor Mayo.65

Mayors concern for the health of democracy included a belief in the education of the masses but the logic of his thought did not allow that this was a primary and fundamental route to social order. Useful and interesting work as it was, the r¡nconscious nind of the worker rather than his rational intellect renained Mayors arena. It was more important

to manage the workerrs behaviour than to enlighten his mind, or to uplift his rnoral attitudes.

The It¡. E . A. inte 1lectuals , however, had certain things in comrnon with Mayo. Heaton approved Democracy and Irv,eednm l'lecause it showed that

rrthere was nothing infallible about democracytr.66 The critique of industrial society and the status it accorded the worker was consistent with the standard W.E.A. analysis, as was the anxiety about the proper

64letters to Dorothea, 23 l',larch and 26 lrfarch, 1919 . AustraLìan HigVu'tay, Vol. 1 no. 3, May 1919 reports on proposals at the Queensland Annual Conference of the W.E.A. to change the character of the movement by making it into a Workerrs College. Vol. 1 no. 5, July 1919 carries report of well-attended classes on psychology given by Mayo. See also V. Crew, rrThe Beginnings of the W.E.A. in Queensland", o?, cit. The yJ.E.A. conference rejected the proposal. A Workers' School of Social Science was then founded but it did not gain enough support fron the unions. 6sAustraLian Highuay, Vo1. l1l, no. 11, January 1922, pp. 5-6. 66H. Heaton, review of Demoe:r,acg and Freedom, The HeraLd,6 February 1919. r91 .

Telationship of the state to comrnunity. It examined another favourite theme in the Australian disaffection with politics and it endorsed

Heatonrs own belief in Australia as an trovel-regulated landr'. Heaton thought l,layors discussion of guild socialist proposals the best he had so far read on the subject (on the other hand, R.C. Mills recornmended the book to Graham Wallas as a 'tsuggestive" account of Australian conditíorrs but he expressed some reservations about its verdict on guild socialism).67 In Heatonrs words, what was needed to replace the intrusiveness of governments was a dose of laissez-fai'te - not laissez-faire plus individualisn but plus voluntary co-operative effort.6B For Heaton and the W"E.A. this voluntaTy, co-opelative effort night be elicited through education in persuading men to these ideals and through institutions such as the Co-operative lvbvement, which was so nuch a legacy of his own Yorkshire upbringing. Collaboration, in the W.E.A. logic, was the product of enlightenment and ratioral understanding

which assisted men to control their own destiny. They looked to the social sciences - sociolory, economics, Political science - to render the worlcl intelligible to the worker ancl they looked optimistically on the power of intellectuals like thenselves to tlansform the attitude of people. Mayo, however, distrusted the political and economic sciences: in his view they had provided the misguided theories of inclividualj-sm and unbridled capitalism. Economics, furthermore' was a representation of the logic of business and as such assumed human motives based on clear reasoning, the operation of which Mayo fundament-

67R.C. Mil1s to G. Wallas, 28 October 1919, Wallas Papers, Box 6, London School of Economics. 6SHeaton to Mayo, 14 February 1919, File 1061, Mayo Mss. Baker Library, Harvard. L92. ally questioned.69 Mayo did call repeatedly for the developnent of the social sciences in Australia but it was psychology, anthropology and sociology that in his view were needed to counteract 'rthe irrational forces of political party spleen and class biasr'. As a conclusion to his essay in Atkinsonts AustraLía he wrote,

Beyond the shores of Australia, the world-storm rages with increasing intensity; our will to internal cohesion is constantly disturbed by social disorder and a class-hatred that is fast beconing stereotyped. Yct we alonc, of all the civilised nations, give no serious consideration to the deeper social causes of disorder. To This passage occurs within the context of a comparison with departments of social study and research in Anerican universities. Bland, Irvine,

Copland and Heaton would have approved the American model but in Mayors terms it was a plea for the education of experts in these fields rather than for worker education. The implications and direction of Mayors theory before he left Australia could not have been fully appreciated

by his 1\1. E. A. colleagues . Heaton, for example, saw a distinction in

Mayors work which indicated a failure to understand the key transitions

of the theory; he wrote to lrlaYo, I hear you aïe on something bì-g in psychology at present' Good luck to you in it; but donrt let the political stuff slide. There is enough work in political science here, waiting to be done, to fill the lives of a dozen lvlayos . 71

For Mayo, psychology created its.own poLitics by its power to dirninish the nsuspicion, dislike and feaï't in the industrial worker and thus to

amend civilisation but it did so by manipulating men within their natural work-groups rather than in their parliamentary and governmental

in s ti tut i ons

69E. Mayo, "Civilisation and Moralêt', oP- cit. 708. Mayo, "The Australian Political Consciousness'r, op eit., p. I44 TlHeaton to ì.4ayo, 14 February 1919 , oP. cit, 193

By L92l the conditions of intellectual life in Australia had becorne increasingly frustrating for Mayo. His sense of singularity as a practitioner of applied psychology was sharpened by his feeling of geographical isolation even wi.thin Australia. In Brisbane he was burdened with administrative 1oads, heavy teaching duties and anxieties about noney and security, alI a itsad hindrance to workrr. After ten years he had begun to feel that the heart had gone out of his work and that he was wasting his lifé,yet at other tines he looked on his Brisbane phase as a rrpeTiod of probationrr and was hopeful: attheplesentmomentiflcouldexpresswhat.Iknow o' prp"i I could lift myself out of this soul-destroying university regime.72

and again, I do feel as if I could do sonething to help the world if I got a chance. It is difficult to get ã chance'73

He had considered liberating himself several tines before, applying for

a post in New Zealand not long after he arrived in Brisbane; anguishing over whether to take Atkinsonrs advice to apply for Francis Andersonrs chair in sydney in I92I; putting in his name for the position of Director of the new Council for Science and Industry to which George Knibbs was appointed.T4 He finally determined to risk his future again outside Australia, leaving behind his fanily until he could re-establish himself abroad. He took leave frorn Brisbane to go south to Melbourne

in 1922 where he spent some stimulating and successful months giving

T2Letter to Dorothea, 23 Ãpril Lg2I. Also 10 March 1920, and 19 March l92I; 27 Tvlatc}- I92l; "May we have many htppy Easters together in a home of our own in some civilised part of Australia" ' T3letter to Dorothea, 1 November 192I. TaApplication to University of Otago, 1913, op._ cit.; on Sydney: Letters to Dorothea, 3 l,4arch lg2}, 23 lrlarch L92I, 11 Octobet I92I; on C.S.LR. Position, Ir{arch 192I. Bernard lvluscio, who worked in industrial psychology in England with C.S. lvlyers, was appointed to Andersonrs chair ín 1922' 194. public lectures on psychology and psycho-analysis to audiences as far apart as the Free KindergaTten Union and the Victorian Branch of the British Ìdedical Association.T5 Had he been successful in his application for Meredith Atkinsonrs post at the University of Melbourne,76 he might have found a ripre congenial home in Australia but there was still little response here to his call for research into the psychological origins of industrial conflict.

At the end of July, 1922, Mayo set off alone for the United States, hoping to support hirnself from the paid lecture circuit until he could become known.77 His first opportunity for empirical research came soon after his arrival when he was granted a Rockefeller Fellowship at the

Wharton School of Finance and Comrnerce at the University of Pennsylvania. This enabled hin to investigate the high labour turnover at a textile mi11 near philadelphia. His experiments with the working conditions there reduced the rate of turnover and improved the output. They also attracted the attention of Wallace B. Donham of the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration to whj.ch l,'!ayo was then invited in TB 1926 as an associate professor of industrial research. He joined the group conducting l'esearch into the industrial environment at the

Hawthorne works of the Western Electric Co. on the west side of Chicago'

TsArgus reports the following lectures by l'layo in Melbourne - lecture to Vlctorian Institute of Advertising 9 March 1922. Six lectures at 1922; Queenrs IIa11 on psychology and psychoanalysis in March and April Address to Nfelboürne University Association I Nlay 1922; Address to Free Kindergarten Union 27 June 1922 Lecture to Victorian Branch of B.Nl.A. op. cit. T6Melbourne University Registry Records FiIe 433/1922' TTLetters to Dorothea, 1 August and 8 August 1921 from the San Francisco Hotel give details of newspaper interviews on arrival in U.S. of attend- rn." a psychology confeience at Stanford, and of arlangements for naid nublic"ã lectures. ?BSee'J.H. Smith, Foreword to the 1975 edition of The SociaL ProbLems of an fld.usty,iaL Ciuilisation for an account of Mayo's work, an assessment of l.'layo and a note on his critics. 195 . the findings of which became synonymous with his nane and the subject of a wide and controversial literature.79

In broader terms, Elton Mayo is recognised by both his adnirers and his critics as one of the seminal figures in the history of applied social science. He never revisited his native Australia.S0 *****

TgApart from Mayots own two books which describe his work, the official accounts are found in F. Roethlisberger and W.J. Dickson, Itlanagement and the b.lorken, (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1939) and T. North Whitehead, The fndustv"LaL Worken, - (Oxford, 1938). For a review and criticisnssee H.A. Landsberger, Ha.'sthorne Reuísited, (Ithaca, N.Y. 1958) . Other critics include I'The Fruitful Errors of Elton Mayorr Fortune, Vo1. 34, November 1946, pp. 181-183; R. Bendix and L.H. Fisher frThe Perspectives of Elton Mayo" , Reuiets of EaonomLcs and Statistics, Vol. 31, 1949, pp. 3I3-32I; and L. Baritz , the Sez'uants of Pouer' (Wesleyan Uni Press, Conn. 1960). 80M"yo remained at Harvard until he retired to England in 1947 where he died in 1949. CHAPTER 7, Douglos Berry Coplond: Economics ond the Sociol Sciences 196 .

tVhen R.F. Irvine called in 1915 for a new brand of trained experts to guide the future Australian democracy, he specifi.ed that their education should enable them to take "the social point of view'r. They would see beyond the view of industry and business as mechanisms for profit and productivity to an appreciation of them as economic forces which I'may or may not increase welfaret'.1 Even Adam Smith, he maintained, had been aware that economic processes were but I'incidents of a larger moral order".2 During the twenties, a new brand of experts did begin their rise to public prominence and power but their very dedication to the scientism of their trade insulated their work from the wider humanistic and ethical deliberations which lrvine deemed so essential. Tn the new breed of economists, of whom Douglas Berry Copland was the archetype, the experts in whon the W.E.A. intellectuals professed so much faith had arrived. They were able to use the rnethod- ology of the social sciences to evaluate the rrsocial laboratoryrr, and to plan its development by tl-re application of impartial scientific formulae, but they no longer defined thej-r task as including such non- rnaterial variables as the ideals which animated a social democracy. This chapter is not dircctly concerned with Coplandrs contributions to the field of technical econonics but with his definition of the role of economics and the nature of the social sciences.

Unlike his W.E.A. contemporaries, Atkinson, Heaton, B1and, Portus,

Mayo and Moleslorth, and fellow economists like Brigden and Mi11s, Copland was entirely a product of the Antipodes. It was not until

1R.p. Irvine, I'National Organisation and National Efficiencyr', Natiornl Efficiency, op. cit., p. 19. 2R.F. Irvine, The PLace of the SocíaL Sciences in a Modern unùuez,sLtg, op. cit., p. 14. r97 .

1926, when he was over thirty and had held two foundation chairs of economics ancl cotnmerce in two Australian universities, that he went abroad to rnake the acquaintance of the mentors of this group at

Cambridge, Oxford, the London School of Econonics and the provincial centres of Leeds and Birmingham. He did, however, have the benefit of a training in econornics in his native New Zealand that was more advanced than any being offered at the time in Australia. Born in Timaru in 1894, Copland attended lectures at Canterbury College while training as a school-teacher at the Christchurch Training College. He studied pure and applied mathematics, Latin and education. In 1915, uncler Professor James llight, he gained an M.A. for his research on the agricultural economics of wheat production, a pioneering work in this area.3 Hight described him as a brilliant student whose particular ability, unusual at the time, was his masteryof mathenatical principles: he had distinguished himself by developing the math. side of Pure Economic Theory to a degree higher than attempted by any of my previous Honours students.4 During the l\lar, Copland worked as a tempoTaTy conpiler of agricultural and pastoral stat-istics in the Census and Statistics Office and also as a mathematics master at Christchurch Boys High School. Fron the beginning, then, before he came to Australia in LgI7, Coplandrs education, interests and experience were in the c¿uantitative, statistical ancl theoretical practice of econonics rather than in the economic history orientation of Heaton or the political economy mould of Irvine.

3Copland to Registrar, Canterbury College, Christchurch, N.2., Curriculum vitae,4 December 1915. Copland Papers, I\{S 3800 N.L'4. a.l. ftigl'rt to Secretary of the Board of Governors, Wainate High School, 14 January 1916. Another ïeference from Dr F.W. Hilgendorf of Lincoln Co1lege, 2l November 1915, describes Copland as rrquiet, convincing and authoritativer'. Copland Papers. 198.

fn I915, (ìo¡rlarrd bccirrnc onc of thc first tutors in tllc infant ll./.1ì .^ in Canterbury. The foundations of the movement in New Zealand followed nluch the same patterns as in Australia. Albert lt{ansbridge had visited Auckland, as well as Australian cities, and his project of worker education had caught up efforts and impulses towards the

Christian uplift of the masses which already existed. The W.E.A. gave new direction, new shape, new organisation, to the evangelical ministry to the working classes especially in the Anglican Church but it also wedded evangelism to the early teaching of the social sciences.

James Hight was the university's leading figure on the Joint Committee for Tutorial Classes in Canterbury and among his first tutors were economists, J.B. Condliffe and Copland.5 Condliffe recalls the rrpris- tine vigourtrof the ffe'lii-ng W.E.A. whose classes he and Copland shared in Christchurch and lVellington. The clientele included active trade uni-on secretaries, N{arxian agitators, leaders of womenrs movements, political organisers and melnbers of the Labour Party who became influential in later years. The discussion was vigorous and the attendance faithful.6 During i916 Copland took over Condliffers classes when he volunteered for lvar service, Copland himself being exempted on health grounds.7 He was elected treasurer to the IV.E.A. j-n 1917 but, soon after, left New Zealand to fill the post at the University of

Tasmania whj-ch had been vacated by Heatonrs nove to Adelaide.

5I m indebted to N.A. Parsloe of the Department of Extension Studies, University of Canterbury, for providing me with information and material on Copland's career with the ül.E.A. in 1916. A picture of the social, intellectual and religious milieu in which the Canterbury W'E.4. was founded is given in N.A. Parsloe, EueL'Lne WíLLett Cunni'ngton and the Or,ígins of the Cantev,bury I'|.E.A. (Wellington 1971) and in The Lectures and Letters of EueLine líiLlett Cunnington, edited by her children, (Christchurch 1918). 6.1 .g. Condliffe, 'rTraining of an Econonj-sttt, Economíc Recov'd. Vo1 , 36, March 1960, pp. I28-I29. TCertificate of Exernption from War Service, 8 Decernber 1916. Copland Papers. 199

Once in Australia, Copland set out to make contact with his few colleagues in economics, notably Heaton and Irvine, and to develop the teaching of his subject in the University of Tasnania. At the core of his work, inherited from Heaton i-n 1917, was a long general history course largely attended by teachers into which Heaton had inserted a large segment on Australasia. Political science, econornics and economic history made up the rest of his teaching. Heaton had nade drastic changes ln the teaching of economics which had, prior to his arrival, been conducted in lectures by E. Morris lvliller under the general heading of philosophy. He had drafted his new course in economic history, had modernised the texts, and had introcluced work in statistics and public finance.B On these foundations Copland built up the areas of economics and conmerce. In 1918, he was successful in gaining the support of the Hobart Chamber of Commerce and of the Institutes of Accountancy in persuading the university to establish a school of commerce. Econornics was to be the central subject in the culriculum and at the same time the teaching of econonics in the Arts course was irnproved.9 In the design of his new commercial ltegree, Copland was eager to seek the advjce of Hight, Heaton and Irvine. Hight was impressed by his pupilrs design, deerning a few of its features to be superior to those in his own cours"s.l0 Heaton was full of encouragement and advice, urging

Copland to look particularly to Japan and America, not only to Europe, as fields for study. Perhaps, he ventured, Coplandrs course was a "1itt1e ambitioust? for students who were stil1 mainly part-time.ll

Bfleaton to Copland, 11 June I9I7. Copland Papers. 9Craufurd Goodwin, Economíc Enquirg in AustnaLia, op. cit., p. 588 lottight to copland, 24 Octobe-r I9I7. Copland Papers. llHeaton to Copland, 24 October 1917. Copland Papers. 200.

Irvine responded in terms that indicated the divergence of enphasis between his orientation and Coplandfs: the course vtas a little too professional. A little more hurnanism wou1d, I think, be an irnprovement.r2

There was also a heavy legacy of W.E.A. teaching. Heatonfs first class had completed their three-year course of economics - 'rhistorical, descriptive and theoreticalrr - but Copland, in his lectures for the tutorial classes, followed the more theoretical course which Condliffe had taught in New Zealanð. The wold, and the dimension, 'rhistoricalrt, was dropped from the title of his course. His aim was the introduction of students to the study of "positive economic science'r and to the analysis of the organisation of the present econolnic system, having special concern for Australian conditions. The course moved through economic definitions of factors such as wants, values, utility, demand, production, consumption, organisation and clistribution, then on to money, finance and banking. Ely, Cannan, Marshall, Hobson, Fisher and Taussig were the nain texts. I 3

In his early years in the W.E.A. Copland embraced its rnoral and missionary aims as fervently as Bland or Portus or Heaton. He had been ready to assist j-n thetrtruly spiritual work" as it expanded in

New Zealand after the lVar, pronoting the establishment of a new branch in his birthplace on a return visit in 1918. He spoke of education as the path to self-realisation; it was, he said, a way of giving the workers a "glimpse of the beauty and power of life"' a means of raising

l2Irvine to Copland, 13 August 1917. Copland Papers. I3D.B. Copland, Syflabus fór Tutorial Classes in Couv'ses of Study ín T\,tl;oríaL CLasses (Hobart , n'd.) . Copland Papers. 20 r. the masses to a higher plane of thought and life.Ia Quoting Charles Gore, he held out that fusion of humane learning and the new social science education which characterised the ltl.E.A. teaching, and he preached the gospel of social responsibility, self:lesgcitizenship and co-operative self-help as expressed in its ethos.l5 In his analysis of the modern industrial problen, Copland also followed the same lines as his colleagues. He criticised capitalism as a system which treated labour only according to the laws of supply and demand but he also believed it was amenable to reform in the light of nore advanced under-standing of economics.l6 In 1919, like his W.E.A. colleagues, he admitted to seeing some hope in guild socialist ideas about industrial reconstTuction and to some interest in the Whitley Councils; these were, as yet, 'rthe most recent and hopeful of socialist movementstl because their critique was based on a condenuration of the connodity nature of labour and because they advocated schemes which tried to integrate labour into economic institutions in a democratic way.l7 He was a stern critic of the Peace Treaty and a supporter of the League of Nations, and, in particular, of the labour clauses in the Covenant of the League. He gave academic lectures on the origins of Bolshevism and attempted to raise the 1evel of public understanding on the problems of l{ar finance.I B In all, the l{.E.4. progïamme in Hobart nirrored the

1 4Annua l Report of the l\r.E.A. Timaru, N.Z. 1918, and newspaper report of Copl and talk at Timaru, 29 January 1918" Newspaper Cuttings Book, Cop land Papers. lsn.B. Copland trEducation As It Affects Democracyrr. Report of talk, (n. d.) Newspaper Cuttings Book, Copland Papers. l 6n.9. Copland, 'rEducation and the Social Prob1em". Report of talk at St. Johnrs Church, June 1918. Newspaper Cuttings Book. Copland Papers. rTúobart Mez,cury, 31 October 1919. Rèport of Cõpland lecture "Tradè Unionism and Industrial Democracyrt, an address given to lV.E.A. Annual Conference. 1Bn.B. Copland (under pseudonym L.P. Bodcand) rrlabor and the Peace Conferencet', AustraLi,an Highuay, Yol . 1, no. 5, July 1919, pp. 9-10, and D.B. Coplancl, The Origins of BoLsheuism, panphlet published by the I\I.E.A. of Tasmania, 4 March 1920. A1so, talks on 'rThe League of Nations" and "The Cost of Living and The Fixing of Pricesrr, June 1918. Newspaper Cutti,ngs Book, Copland Papers . 202. interests and attitudes of those in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide, but the orientation of the treatnent of these subjects was always economic, emphasising the operation of economic factors in both the problems and their solutions.

Copland couched his aims in the rhetoric of the ll/.E.A. - "the inculcation of the spirit of democracyrr, 'rserving the comnunityrr or a tthigher moral tonert - but his curricula for the proper education was definite and concrete. He held the view that education meant prirnarily the understanding of the social organism according to the laws and procedures of the positive science of economics. More than once he declared that the social sciences were the way tortthe stimulating vision of what social welfare meansil but his educational agenda was basically the study of economics. He advocated that such a study should replace the moralistic approach to social problens found in the schools and that the teachers should first of all lead their pupils to an understânding of the systen in which they lived and worked.

He suggested trade policy, public finance and industrial legislation as the sort of problems towards which students should be directed.

Economics w¿rs not, he rnaintained, a colourless subject but one which could fit progressive educational ideals: it will leave the student with the fine sense of unfinish and expectations of future explorations which has already been acclaimed as the ideal before the successful school. 19

At the university leve1, Copland found a deplorably 1ow leve1 of interest in economic and connercial education.20 Like Heaton and l?n.¡. Copland, rrEducation As It Affects Democracy', , op. cit. 2jHobay,t DaiLy Post, 23 May 1918. Report of Copland tãlk on the estab- lishment of a school of commerce: t'a really sound bureau of economics and commerce could only be established by a live interest in the Universitiesrr. 203.

Irvine, he recognísed that economics had had an unfortunate history in Australia, having been used in the past to further the interest of one poLitical group against another and thereby incurring the suspicion of both the academic and commercial worlds. The dichotomy which existed between the theoretical econonist and the practical man of business was yet another source of mistrust to be overcome. The business men of Hobart, however, did r"rpoid to Copland's suggestions that their growing power and their role in the nationrs future made it inperative that they not neglect the "higher thought on economic problems". He persuaded them that increased productivity, efficiency, the improved conservation of resources, the handling of the human element in industry, al1 required a better general education and a more sophj-sticated grasp of the social and econornic system. His design for such an education included areas of econornic history, economic geography, and public adninistration as well as the subjects for cornmercía1 training. Such a course, he emphasised, would still serve practical needs like the training of public servants or the developrnent of efficiency among prirnary producers.2l In response to

Coplandrs persuasions, the business men donated funds to the university appeal to subsidise the future establishment of a chaj-r in econonics and commerce. In making his own claims to the chair, Copland could poínt to his successfr-rl initiation of commerce courses and to the expansion of the tutorial class movemerÌt which accorded a central place to the teaching of economics. The six tutorial classes and two branches of the W.E.A. which he had found in 1917 hað, by 1920, increased

211.8. Copland, trEconomics for the Business Mantr. Address to the Victorian Institute of Accountants, Hobart, 24 October 1918. Also, D.B. Copland, "Commercial Education. What Tasnania Proposesr'. Lecture to Launceston Chanber of Commerce, 6 Decernber 1918. Both in Newspaper Cuttings Book. Copland Papers. 204 to clcvcn cllrsscs, two stucly circlcs ancl ninc ltrancltcs. llc now hacl two lecturers to asslst him: B.H. Molesworth took the classes in the north of the state and J.B. Brigden shared the teaching in the university. His students wer.e now conducting research projects on Australian economic problens, a measule of the developnent of that subject during his tenure.22 Copland himself hacl been promoted in 1918, forrnally made Director of Tutorial Classes in 1919 and, on the estab- lishnent of the school of commerce, had been appointed Dean. Heaton wrote in support of Copland, attesting to the high quality of the examination papers he had read from Coplandrs students and noting that Copland had been able to build up a wide base of conrnunal suppoltl Mr Coplandrs thorough, impartial and fearless treatment of his subject has won for hirn the respect and admir- ation of all sections of the community, and he is persona grata alike in the Chamber of Commerce and the lrades Ha11.23 By the end of the year, Copland had been invited to the new chair.24

Heaton thought highly of the young Copland. He was an unexpected discovery in the Antipodes with his thorough grounding in economics and his ability to develop his subject, both institutionally and in the community, while remaining apparently free of the snares of controversy that had iryreded several of hi s predeces.sors and contemp- oraries in Australia. The only thing needed, I-leaton believed, to produce a "first-rate fellow" in Copland was a couple of years in Eng1and.25 When C.R. Fay incluired from Toronto as to who were the

2zcop1-and to Vice-Chance11òr, University of Tasmania, 25 Februa'ry 1920. Copland Papers. 23Heaton to University of Tasmania, 15 lr{arch 1920. Copland Papers. 24Registrar, University of Tasmania, to Copland, 24 December 1920. Copland Papers. 25Heaton to A. Zimmern, 15 June 1920. Heaton Papers, University of llinnesota Archives. 201,

lcacling ccotìomists witÌì whonr he might make contact in Australi.a, Ileaton placed Copland foremost, despite the fact that he was 'ra bit orthodox and text-booky in his economics". 26 Orthodoxy and the rather renote dryness of his technical Tesearch on which Coplandrs colleagues remarked, hrere, hot^lever, the very qualities needed for survival and success in the pursuit of economics as a field in Australian r.rniversit- ies. Ancl, in his research, Copland was making significant advances in hís profession, applying the new marginal theory of economics to Australian problems. He analysed Australian economic conditions in the po-st-War years of boom and depression by examining the components of

ecorromic fluctuation and emphasising the role of monetary factots.2T He continually insisted that only the technical expertise of the trained economist could explain current economic problems and the forces under- lying the manifestations of industrial unrest: It is not enough to say that the abnormal events of the war and post-war periods are lresponsible for the bad times we entered upon in the middle of 1921 ' The general effect of these events was to inpoverish us, but for nany years there was a great outward show of increasing wealth. The underlying effects lvere discernible only to those who examined the situêtion closely and impartíallY.28

It was, thcrefore, not only in the univeÏ'sitics that a ploper recognition of the skills and knowledge of the economist was necded. Copland joined the lV.E.A. intellectuals in their criticisn of the failure of governments and publj-c bodies to utilise the expertise of

26Heaton to C.R. Fay,20 April 1922. Ileaton Papers' 27see D.B. Copland, 'rCuïrency Inflation and Price }4ovements in Australia" Economic JournaL, Vo1. XXX, December 1920, pp. 484-509i Currency and prices in AustraLia, The Joseph Fisher Lecture in Conmerce (Adelaìde Economic JournnL, lg21); "The Econornic Situation in Australj-a, 1918-23",'Taxation Vo1. XXXIV, Nlarch 1924, pp. 32-5I; 'rsorne Problems of in Australiat', Economic Journal, Vo1. XXXIV, September 1924, pp. 387-397; nThe Australian Income Tax'r, Quav,tev,Lu JournnL of Ecornmics VoI- 39, i925, pp. 70-9s. 2bO.e. Copland, rrThe Economic Situation in Australia, l9l8-23" op. cit', p. 36, anð passim. 206 social scientists in the fornation of policy. He argued that economics was the crucial deposit of wisdon which governments nust tap and frequently complaj-ned that no professional economist had been called to serve on inportant Royal Commissions, although his advice might be sought in testimony. Two examples of this neglect which prevailed until the mid-twenties were the Basic lllage Comnission, chaired by

A.B. Piddington in 1919, and the 1920 Royal Comnis-sion into Taxation, on which the Commissioners were representatives of commercial, farmlng ancl labour interests. The Piddington Royal Commission had dealt with complex economic matters: it was charged with determining the 'rjustil basic wage, a matter which econornists believed related not only to the "needs" of an average family as Higgins had decreed, but also to the cost of living and to the fundamental question of the productivity of industry. Both Commissions collected masses of data upon matters of public finance, trade and productivity, but Copland noted that there was no expert economist on these bodies to interpret then.29 It was generally the case in Australia, he told readers of the Economíc

Journal in 1924, that although the average man showed great interest in economic problems, tìre study of economics was still 'rbackwardtr. A further example of the failure to use expert knowledge occurred, in

Coplandts view, at the Tndustrial Conference called by l{.M. Hughes early tn ).922. The Conference collapsed in disarray because according to Copland, popular opinion, erroneous impressions and the exchatrge of experience between employers and ernployees could be no substitute for a 'tthorough quantitative analysis" of the features of the Australian economic system which were under discussion. But, Copland conceded,

29D.8. Copland, "Some Problems of Taxation in Australiarr, op. cit., p 388 . 207

until the Universities have developed a greater respectfortheconclusionsofpureeconomics,and outeconomistshaveprovideddataforthestudyof our leading problems' we cannot expect political and industiiãt leaders to be greatly influenced by the princiPles of economics ' 3o

There was no want of theory about what he called'rsocial economicsn in Australia but this was beginning at the wrong end: data and analysis must precede social action. Such an appÏoach was not popular in Australia because, he suggested, there is a tradition that economists are dull and theoretical, and a young democracy can ignore them with inPunitY.3l Ile asserted, to the contrary, that the objectivity of the economist was to be valued because it was not subject to the "clash of inteTestsrr which usually prejudiced the decision of economic issues in Australia'

In 1923 he declared to the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science meeting, jtrstatthemomentitsohappensthattheecononist is (or should be) king in this äs in evey other country.32

At the next meeting of the A.A.A.S. in 1924, the economists took a major professional step forward in the foundation of a national

Economics Society and the lar.rnching of its journal, the Economic Record' copland, its first editor, welcomed the professionalisation evidenced in these develoPnents:

30D.8. Copland, trThe Economic Situation in Australia, 1918-2311 ' op. "i!'' pp. 48-51-. see also D.B. Copland, ttThe Trade Depression in Australia in Relation to Economic Thoughti'. Paper read to A.A.A.S. 1923' Report of the Siæteenth Meeting of lhe Lustz'aLasiarL Assocíation foz' the Aduance- ment of Science heLd at rtlelLington 1923, pp' 555-557' giD.S. Copland, ttThe Trade Depiession in Australia in Relation to Economic Thought" , o?. ci't. p. 555. 32tbid. 208

There is an urgent need for some organisation to prornote economic knowledge, and, more especially, to encourage a respect for such knowledge, and for the scientific approach to econonic problems which bulk so largely in the political life of Australia.33

At the same time, economists were beginning to emerge as public figures and shapers of policy. In 1925, J.B. Brigden, R.C. tr4i11s and J.T.

Sutcliffe hrere appointed to the Queensland Economic Comrnission on the

Basic lVage whereas, five years earlier, the important Commonwealth

Basic Wage Commission had been entrusted to a lawyer in Piddington.

Brigden, who had succeeded Copland in Hobart in 1924, also became closely associated with the Tasmanian State Treasury in an advisory capacity and was consulted by the Bruce-Page government on industrial relations. His work on the Tariff, which appeared in the first issue of the Economic Record, irnpressed the government and led directly, according to Copland, to the establishment of a committee of five economists (Brigden, Copland, IVickens, Giblin and Dyason) to advise on the problerns of the Tariff. Brigden went on to investigate the movements of shipping as Deputy-Chairman of the Australian overseas Transport Association in 1929, while Copland and fel1ow economists served on the Developrnent and Migration Commission. Between the wars, the role that Copland envisaged for economists became a reality, particularly as a result of the Depression. The evidence of economists was decisive in the 1931 decision of the Commonwealth Arbitration Court to reduce the basic wage. Thus, the expertise of Copland, Dyason, Brigden, Hytten, Giblin, Shann and Nlelville played a crucial part in

330.8. Copland, I'The Economic Society - Its Origin and Constitutionr', Economíc Reeord, Vol. I-2, November L925, p. 142. 209 analysis of the factors leading to the Depression and in the strategies adopted for economic recovery.34 *****

At the point where he had placed economics and commerce on a secure footing in Tasmania, Copland u/as contemplating a move abroad, hoping to study at Cambridge or the L.S.E., but his plans were frustrated by recurring i1l-health.35 He had returned to lJew ZeaIancl, for an extencled visit and, during Ig19 and 1920, had applied for chairs of

economics at otago and christchurch.36 rn 1922, he hras one of the nany unsuccessful applicants for lt{eredith Atkinsonrs position of Director of Tutorial Classes at the University of l4elbourne. Although he and

I-leaton were the runners-up, the post went to John Atexander Gunn.37

In 1924, however, Copland achieved his translation to Melbourne when he was appointed to the foundation chair of commerce.

The development of economics at the University of Melbourne had been made cl.ifficult by its earlier traditjonal links with political cconomy and the problerns of naintaining a satisfactory separation of economics fron politics. lVhen W.E. Hearn held one of the four original

chairs in the university, which covered history and political economy, the free-trade doctrines which he expounded had brought hin and his subject under political attack from protectioni-sts and forged in the minds of nany an inevitable connection between econornics, political

34See D. B. Copland, Australia in the ï,loz.Ld Cnisi,s lgZg-19ZS, (Cambridge 1934) and C.B. Schedvin, Ausl;raLia and the Gz.eat Depz,essíon (sydney 1970) esp. pp. 2rB-22s. J5A.W. Hodgart , The FacuLtg of Economícs and Conrmerce. A Histot'y 1925-75 (Melbourne n.d.) p. 5. Hodgart refers to a letter frorn B,H. Tawney to Copland on this matter, 26 Apri\ 1923. 36night to Copland re Otago, 2O JuIy 1919; re Christchurch, 2I JuIy r920. 3TMelbourne University Registry Files Ig22/435. 210 . interest and controversy. But, from the turn of the century, the subject of economics also had powerful advocates in university circles ' In their efforts to modernise the currictlla of the universitY, W' Ilarrison Moore, Henry Bournes Higgins and Janes Barrett, had long argued for the inclusion of rnore social and applied sciences, following the example of the North American universities which they adnired' As early as 1903, Ilarri,son lr,loore was quoting the pTogTanmes of German univcrsities, the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and Willian Ashleyrs new department at the University of Birminghan - all were models of the alliance between business and the university which

gave economics a functional status. Under J.S. Elkington, who succeeded to Hearnrs chair, the popularity of potitical econony declined until, after his retirement in 1912, it continued only as a subject in the Arts Faculty, taught by E.C. Kelly.38 It was not until 1930 that a school of economics was established in the B.A. Degree and this was to be controlled by Coplandrs Commerce Faculty.

As copland conceived his new Faculty of commerce, it was to reinforce the links between the university and the business world' The interests of business and conmerce, finance and rnanufacturing, were firmly represented on the Board of the Faculty. Outside members included G. Swinburne, E.C. Dyason and D.G. Paterson among those sent fron the Associated Banks, the Stock Exchange, the Tnsurance Institute and the Joint Council of Accountancy to sit on the Board. However, Copland, as Dean, ü/as the shaping influence: his drafts, proposals

3BSee Craufurd Goodlvin, Eeonomic Enquiry in AustraLia, op. ctb. pp. 568- 581 . Also J. La Ì,lauze, PoLitícaL Econonrg in AustraLia (lvlelbourne 1949) . 271. and appointments were generally acknowledged and endorsed by the Faculty.39 In turn, he respected the initiatives and interest in the outside commrnity that had made his chair a reality. He paid tribute to the men who had seen beyond the old contTovelrsial distinction between theory and practice in the training of commercial men. In his Inaugural Lecture, Copland redefined that o1d dichotomy as the true relation between practical affairs and science, asserting that it was reciprocal. FIe defined science as a body of knowledge derived frorn experience of its material, and co-ordinated so that it shal1 be use- ful in foreqasting and, if possible, directing human behaviour.+u Although he was always confident about the marshalling of facts and the potential of their scientific analysis, he did al1ow for some understanding of the actions of men but these, too, could be observed and studied. lluman and cultural possibilities were not to be ignored

in the name of science, and Copland approved Deweyts dictun that a couTse of str.rdy must have "appreciation value" and aspire to the personal enrichment of the student, but, to his patrons, the rnain appcal was tangible results. Copland hacl to convince them that the scientifj-c qualities of a university education made it superioT to the pragmatic experience of a practical apprenticeship. His course rmst be justifiable in terms of what it could add to business efficiency

and the handling of the economic affairs of the nation. In general, he believed it would contribute to manrs ultimate mastely over the

economic system by which he gained his livelihood.

394. tlodgart, op. cít. pp. 5-6. 40D.g. Copland, Contmerce and Business. Inaugural Leeture (Melbourne 192s) p. s. 2r2.

There hrere, therefore, much broader concerns in a university education in commerce which arose from the complex nature of modern society. Business men would need to understand the whole econonic organisation - in short, to study economics. Copland was careful to aIIay the suspicions of his audience by distinguishing the new economics from the old political economy. The latter, he explained, had been based on abstract theory and was of mere acadernic interest but his own subject could now claim to be the most exact of the social sciences. I-le spoke to persuade the business men of Melbourne of the respectability, reliability and scientific utility of economics, drawing their attention to the sophisticated methods of data cotlection and statistical analysis and to at1 the refined techniques which achieved the accuracy of the subject. Exactitude and objectivity now replaced vagueness and abstraction. The rest of his lecture gave, as an exarnple, the operation of all the above in his own studies of the Australian currency. 4 I

Under r^rhat tlerbert Burton caIled Coplandrs "characteristic vigour and breadth of outlooktr, the fields of economics and commerce grew steað,tly.42 Copland had a particular skill for relating what was taught and done in his Faculty to the university. In its early years,

G.L. Wood and F.R. Mauldon joined his staff and, in 1929, there was a notable coup in the establishment of a research chair in economics to which L.F. Giblin, a staunch ally of the tV.E.A. in Hobart, was appointed. qr tb¿d. , passim. a2H. Burton, "Sir Douglas Copland and the l.,lelbourne Commerce School" Ecoytomic Record, Vol. 36, March 1960, pp. 139-142. Several accounts of Copland's work are contained in I'Essays in Honour of Sir Douglas Copland'r in this volune. 2I3.

Blancl -surnrncd up Coplanclrs path to progrcss in a letter to l'lcaton and Portus in 7927:

I had a look over Copiers School of Conmerce. He has a School with staff and students which would be the envy of anyone. He is a little king over there. Newspapers listen to his oracular statenents, business men and financiers worship at his feet, and from afat, students are drawn as moths to a flane, and other Professors have not yet become accustomed to the blaze of the new luminary. This is not satire, it is sheer realities, and so far Copie has no Shadows to contend with.43

Allowing for the ptayful hyperbole among friends, BJ.and was nonetheless correct in remarking the cxtent of Copland's conquest at the University of Melbourne. *****

In the advancement of the social sciences in Australia, Copland was able to extend his activities. beyond the University of Melbourne and the W.E.A. of Victoria. In 1926 he was asked by Beardsley Rurnl,

Director of the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial, to assist their progranme of developing the social sciences in,various parts of the wor1d. The L.S.R.l'4. hacl originally prornoted social welfare progranmes but under Ruml, who was convinced that the problems of society would be solved by scientific social research, its interest was directed to the social sciences. Its aim was to create centres and institutions in several countries which would concentrate on such research and teaching and to begín an extensive Fellowship programme which would enable social scientists from arouncl the world to work at the centres.

43Bland to Portus and l{eaton, 30 Nlay 1927 . Bland Papers, D.A.E. Universi.ty of Sydney. This long and informative letter was written to both while Portus was visiting the United States. 2r4

The University of Stockholm and the London School of Economics were two proninent institutions thus funded by Rockefeller money.44 Coplandrs task was to assess the needs of the social sciences in Australia and to develop the Fellowship progranne to take Australian scholars abroad.

It was a scheme which Copland believed offered unique opportunities to Australia of inproving the quality of instruction in social science and of establishing closer connections with the great centres of learning in other parts of the world.45

In the same year Copland went abroad to study the operations of the

L.S.R.l4. in Europe and Anerica, meeting all the leading academic economists and taking stock of the teaching of the social sciences and

the arrangernents for social science research in the countries he visited. It was, in many ways, the -sane tour taken by Peter Board, Janes Barrett and R.F. Irvine in pre-ltlar years but, in Coplandts case, the results were more productive - a measure of the distance already travelled by the social sciences in Australia in the intervening yeal:s .

Coplandrs report on his tour, containing his subsequent recommend-

ations for Australian universities, was published in 1927 by the new Melbourne tJniversity Press.46 The report, entitled StuLdies in Economics and Social Science was based on two premises: one, that Ar-rstralia had hardly begun to provide for the systematic study of the social sciences which had been flourishing in universities abroad for at least the past three decades, and two, that the social sciences

44For an account of Ruml and the L.S.R.I{. see D. Fisher, "American Philanthropy and the Social Sciences in Britain,, 1919-1939; the Re- production of a Conservative Ideology", SociologicaL Reuieu, Vol. 28, no. 2, May 1980, pp. 277-315. 45Cop1and to Chancellor, University of Melbouïne, 25 ApriI 1927. Cop land Papers. A memorandurn reporting on his tour abroad. a6D.B. Copland, Studies in Economics and SociaL Science, Economic Series no. 2 (ltlelbourne 7927) . 2L5. themselves had now reached such a degree of accuracy and reliability that rnan could look forward to an increasing control over his world.

He was impressed by the efforts being made overseas to co-ordinate research in the social sciences which aimed at

bringing the more exact rnethocls of measurenent now available to the solution of social and econornic problens which hitherto have been considered in the iigt'rt of crude observation on1y.47 Australian public 1ife, he pointed out in the manner of Irvine and Barrett before him, had taken litt1e account of the benefits available to it through the expertise of the social sciences. Trained graduates had yet to be appreciated and preferred in employment and there existed, as yet, no privately funded or governrnent supported research institute clevoted to the social sciences such as those he had seen abroad. A neu/ coutìtry like Australia, he argued, must extend its understanding of its own political and econonic organisation as thoroughly and scien- tifically as possible. The training of graduates was a matter of particular interest: he favoured the general education of Arnerican undergraduate progralnmes and the specialisation at graduate 1eve1. Ivithjn that education he was impressed by the empirical approach to sociological questions and recommended the adoption of rrcase study methods" in graduate seminars and the "social survey'r as a way of collecting research data.

The uses of social science research for private and public policy formation interested hin particularly, as it had Irvine. He saw in other countries how much data could be gathered on facets of social

aTtbíd., p. 2 2t6. life - crime studies, child welfate, local government, transportation or industrial relations. Public and private endownent of such research rnade possible in Anerica the uses of knowledge elaborated, for exarnple, by Charles Memiam in his Neu Aspects of PoLitics' a book which

Copland quoted in support of his ideas. Copland recommended the

development of the standard social sciences - geography, anthropology, psychology, economics and political science - but he gave added attention to those subjects like public adninistration and industrial psychology which, like commerce, furthered the interaction of the university and public life. It was anomalous, as American visitor Carter Goodrich from the university of Michigan had recently pointed out, that in a country iri whicþ trade unions and labour politics had been so influential, the study of labour management was barely initiated. In the same way, in a country where government was so extensive, there had been little

encouïagement given to the study of public administration in rnore than

one university. There was no agency in Australia for investigating the operations of government or specific social and economic problems except the Royal Commission. Except for the valuable efforts of the Bureau

of Census and Statistics, Copland did not believe Australia had advanced in un

Comnission.4B

+albid.., passim. Goodrich is quoted on p. 18. 2r7 .

Although there was atì emphasis on economics in the progranmes of thc L.S .R.M. , thc Fcl lowships werc not restricted to economi.sts. It was Coplandrs intention to award the first fetlowships to those already in the universities who had not yet been able to go abroad and then to extend the scheme to younger post-graduates. The awards hrere not advertised but made by Itinformal co-opelationrr between Copland and the universities who advised him of potential candidates. In the early years of the operation, Copland nominated the Fellow after consultation with colleagues in econonics and W.E.A. counter- parts like Bland and Portus. The professionalisation of the social sciences thus took a step forward as young Australian social scientists went abroad to study in a way that Copland himself had not been able to.49

A comparative reading of Copland t s Studies in EconowLes and SociaL Science (1927) and R.F. Irvinets The Plaee of the SocíaL

Sciences in a Modenn uniuersity (1914) illuminates the passage of the early W.E.A. mentality regarding the importance of social inquiry to the specialised professionalisation of social science disciplines. Both reports followed the study of European and American models and both argued against the rrcloistraltt, "0lympian'r detachment of univers- ities fron the community, as Irvine called it, urging the foundation of research institutes which would bridge the two worlds. Irviners nain point, however, b/as the "anthropocentricrr nature of the social sciences: all natural and human scientific endeavour was abortive

49General Correspondence on L.S.R.M. business, 1928-9. Copland Papers. Among the first recipients were F.C. Benharn,4.L.6. Mackay, W. Macmahon Ba11, and A.C.V. Melbourne. Copland also negotiated a grant for the W.E.A. from the Carnegie Corporation on his U.S. tour. 2r8.

unles-s it ultimately resulted in the better rrrealisation of ends to which hunan beings can reasonablY attach,rt1r"rr5o

The social sciences, in Irviners definition, were scientific ín spi-rit and nethod but humanistic in that they dealt with human beings ' They wedded scientism to what he terned Practical Humanism which interpreted and valued the social origins and effects of the present social and economic system and applied research to societyrs problems. Social refo1m, human value Systems and a moral order were all part of lrviners faith in the social sciences but there was none of this rhetoric in the Copland discussion. Copland celebrated the triumph of methodology and the mastery it would give man over his social envj.ronment - its ends were no longer elaborated in ethical terms. There was also a fundamental difference in Irvinets and Coplandrs thinking on the co- ordination of social inquiry which was exemplified in their respective attitucles to the subject of sociology. Indeed, the fate of sociology at tl're University of lrlelbourne l,/as a telling indication of the directions which the social sciences in Aust'raLia were to take for the next thirty yeaTs. To chart, in this one episode, the di-splacement of Irviners rnentality by Copland's, it is necessary to return lo 1922 to the appoì-ntment of Meredith Atkinsonrs successoT, John Alexander Gunn'

Among the diverse array of forty people who applied for the post of Director of Tutorial Classes at the University of Melbourne in 1922

were ir4ayo, who left for the united States in that year, c.H. Northcott

who did not return to Atrstralia but went to Rowntree's in England as a pioneer in industrial management, R.C. N{i1ls who rvithdrew to take

50R.¡. Irvi-ne, The pLace of the SociaL Sciences in a ModernUniueTsity,' p. 20. Irviners quotation is from L.T. Hobhouse, sociaL Euolution and Po LLtLca L 'l'neoY'A . 2L9.

Irvine's chair in Sydney, I{eaton in Adelaide, H. Duncan Hall who was appointed to a chair at Syracuse University, and Copland, still in

Hobart. The job specified the special importance of economics and inclustrial history and the responsibility for the teaching of sociology in the university. All these applicants had been involved in the

W.E.A. movement but only Northcott had any fornal training in sociology.

The man selected was a scholar in French philosophy from Liverpool,

John Alexander Gunn. Gunnrs educatj-on was in philosophy and classics, his Ph.D. was gained for a study of Bergson and he had been a tutor for the !V.ll.A. at the University of Livcrpool in social psychology, econonicsand economic history. He was warmly recomnended by the English advisory committee of A.L. Smith and Albert Mansbridg".sl

Copland was the second on the short list; he was also the friend and favoured candidate of S.D. Thompson, the powerful secretary of the

W.E.A. in Victoria, with whom Gunn had to work in organising tutorial classes.

Gunn inmediately identified his sociology as serving "Social Progress'r, which was the title of his Inaugural Address. It was, he instructed his audience, the positive study of the social groups of rnankind with reference to the psychological, physical and biological factors involved in the process of social evolution. Social progress was defined as the strengthening of social solidarity, and sociology was the subject which most advanced this because it preserved the wholeness of social knowledge.52 The sociologist, according to Gunn, should present society as a complex of four factors: Breed, by which

5lMelbourne University Registry Files 1922/ 433 . 52J. Alexander Gunn, SoeiaL FYogress. fnauguraL Lectut,e (Melbourne I92s) pp. I-20. 220. he meant the biological factor, population and fanily; Livelihood, which was the econoÍnic element; Government, which covered the nature and purpose of the state, and Culture, or rrsocial nentalitytt, which included ideas of citizenship and morality. What Gunn called Breed and Culture were in his theory governed by assunptions based on

Darwinian selection and on current psychological theories about intelligence. The 'rgroup mindrJ was central to this discourse and

Gunn drew on the writing of McDougall, Wallas, Le Bon, Tarde, Trotter and Lippman, who in various r^rays raised the irrationalist spectre of the herd-crowd which \4ras susceptible to press and demagogue - the same ignorant masses who worried Mayo and Atkinson. The other two factors, Government and Livelihood, were also to be understood in terms of contemporary group theory: Maclver, Cole, Laski and Follett were cited among others.53 Gunn projected a four-volume work entitled

Human Societg to deal with each factor but only one, Liuelihood, appeared in 1927.

Gunnrs sociology course reflected the same organising ideas. It was a compound of political philosophy, rudimentary economic history, social psychotogy and biology (here to be translated as eugenics). He announced the course as a study of cornmunity as the I'expression of life", with R.M. Maclverts book, Corrrnunitg, as the text. Lectures on

Comte, Spenser and Darwin put forward the clains of positivisn and the notion of social evolution. This was followed by a survey of group organisation from primitive man, through nanor and guild and factory system, to present social groupings from the family to the League of s3J. Alexander Gunn, LiueLihood, (Melbourne 1927). Preface. 22t.

Nations. The econoniic factor was treated next: the rise of industry, the division of labour, trade unions, trusts and the problems of distribution of wealth. Theories of the state from Aristotle to Hegel were then expounded and the nature of sovereignty explored. After a brief discussion of Marx, Sorel and the guild socialists, the final lectures dealt with population quantity and quality, the psychology of the group, comparative reli-gion and the influence of the press.

Besides Maclverrs works, the main reading was to be Hobhouse, Tawneyrs

Acquisítiue Society, Hetherington and Muirheadts SociaL Puu,pose, Jenks on State and the Nation and BarkerrPoLitícaL Thought from Spencez, to Today. Essays might be done by students on either industrialisation, or womanhood and the ethics of feminism, which was part of the study of sex ancl the family. The Honours year was an intensive study of political theory devoted again to the nature, purpose and organisation of the state. The last term of the course testified to Gunnfs belief that the progressive society must be concerned about the quality of its populatíon. I'le invited the professor of zoology, W.E. Agar, to give a series of lectures on the outline of genetics and its application to the hunan race - it was termed eugenics in the universityrs Calendar. Complete with scientific tables and equations, the course in eugenics pondered the urgency of rnatters such as the propagation of the unfit, the havoc of venereal disease, the evils of alcoholism and prostitution, and tJre threat of mental deficiency.5a A new element had entered the teaching of sociology in Gunnrs identification of social progress with better breeding and high intellisence. Eugenics

54Melbourne Unviersity Calendar, 1923, pp. 559-560. I am also much indebted to Professor N.D. Harper for the use of his lecture notes from Gunnrs sociology courses, 1925. 222. was as irnportant as education.

The clains for the legitimacy of sociology in the arguments of Anderson, Irvine, Northcott, Atkinson and Gunn had all rested heavily on the interdisciplinary nature of the subject. Each had asserted its organic wholeness which integrated the insights of other social sciences. But as the professionalisation.and the specialisation of those other sciences became more advanced, Gunnrs sociology incurred the charge of bej.ng superficial and o1d-fashioned. The o1d accepted nexus between sociology and economics came under particular fire when

Copì.and began his highly professional school of economics and comtnerce in 1925. As a technical economist and an exponent of the scientific accuracy of his discipline to business and governments, Copland believed that each area of the soci-al sciences should be discrete, enpirical and trustworthy. The exception was sociology which he had found to be, in his experience, eclectic and amorphous. His hostility to sociology at lr{elborrrne was undoubteclly coloured by a dcep personal animosity to

Gunn, which he shared with his fi:iend, S.D. Thompson, the secretary of the iV-E.4. One of Atkinsonrs legacies at Melbourne had been an inter- necine war between Thompson and the ltl .8.4. on the one hand and Gunn and the university on the other. It was, in essence, a struggle over who should run the extension programme of the university. Because of his neglect of duties, Atkinson had allowed Thompson to become the universityts executive officer in these matters, a situation that was not acceptable to Gunn nor to the university. In two inquiries into the affair, in 1924 anð 1926, Gunn wa-s vindicated and the power of the IV.E.A. was limited. As a member of the Federal Council of the

55Melbourne University Extension Board. Report of Conmittee of Enqr-riry, 14 February 1927. Registry Files 1927/257. 223. l\r.8.4., Copland was very involved in the in-fighting and supported

Thompson, even against the cooler judgements of ltl . E '4. col leagues, J.B. Brigden, G.V. Portus and F.A. Bland. All were convinced, however, that Gunn was a peTsonal disaster for the l\l .8.4. cause.56

Since Gunnrs appointment, other efforts had been made to strengthen the social sciences in the universities. The newly formed Australasian Association for Psychology and Philosophy ca1led for the developnent of psychology and for the foundation in each university of a department of social scj-ences,57 In 1925, under the chairmanship of A. Boyce Gibson, the professor of philosophy, the University of Melbourne set up a cornmittee to consider the viability of these

motions. Gunn argued the need for a chair of sociology to this commit- tee in the following terms:

The existence of a professorshì-p of Sociology (or Civics, Social Science, Social Philosophy, or Political Science, the choice of name is not a vital matter) would raise the standard and status of this important subject not only in the

56Bland to Portus and Heaton, 30 l'Iay 1927, gives the following appraisal of the impasse: Gunn you will remember was not the selection of Thompson. He wanted l-lerbert and failing hin copie Gunn knew nothing of of what a Director ought to do, i-s slovenly in his administration, and very interested in Philosophy. His own incompetent administration was not helped by Thompsonrs ineptitude, and in 1923 he wrote a prì-vate memo to the university council urging Thompsonrs sack, Thomnie got off at the inquiry because the University people did not know what to look for, and Gunn did not know how to present his case. That sealed Gunnrs doom. Ever since Thommie has been on his track. Thomnie w4nts complete control of the Tutorial Classes. Further on in his letter Bland reports that he t'saw Copie who poured out his contempt for Gunnf'. Copland Papers. 574.H. lr{artin to the Registrar, 15 January 1925, Melbourne University Registry Fi1es, 1925/408. A1so, Editorial, "The Pan-Pacific Scientiflc Congress and the Study of Sociotogy", AustraLasian Jouv'rmL of PsychoLogy and PhiLosophy, Vol. I no. 3, Septernber 1923 pp. 159-161. 224.

University but in the community and appears a necessary step to the attainment of that informed citizenship which is necessary in our democracy.58

Gunnts vagueness about the name of the subject perfectly encapsulated Copland's objections to it. However, the dilemrna did not last long. trVithin the month, the chairrnan of the Professorial Board made it clear there was no financial hope of any such developments and even hoped to avoid the costs of circulating the copies of Boyce Gibsonts report to the thirty members of the Board.

The publication of Gunnrs economic text, LíueLihood, in 1927 did nothing to redeem his reputation. He maintained in the book that the status of sociology as the central social science cast no reflection upon the autonomy of economics. Sociology took under its purview the whole of society while economics oealt only with wealth and livelihood in the light of statistics. His own attempt to handte this fragment of hunan experience drew scornful appraisal from econornists. Reviewers in the Economic Journal, the American Economíc Reuieu, and even the

W.E.A.rs own journal, the AustraLian HigVnsag, concluded that the book was useless, too elementary, out-of-date, poorly organised, i11-balanced, carelessly written and badly punctuated. Il. Sanderson Furniss pointed to Gunnrs real problem, in remarking that economics had now reached the stage where it was doubtful if the whole ground of econornics could be satisfactorily covered in a small text,59 By 1927 there was a substantial arnount of pioneering research complete on Australian

58J. Alexancler Gunn, Report to A. Boyce Gibsonfs Committee, 29 May 1925. Melbourne University Registry Files 1925/408. 59H. Heaton, review of J.A. Gunn, LiueLihood, Ameriean Economic Reuieu, Vo1 . 17 , 1927 , p. 686; H. Sanderson Furniss, review, Eeornmic Jotu,na.L, Vol. 37, December 1927, pp. 643-644; F.A. Bland, review, Austz'aLian Highuay, 10 August, 1927, p. 111. 225.

economic problems, a body of work which did not exist when Atkinson

began his course in 1918. Gurur could list, for example, Sutcliffe on

The NatíonaL Diuidend in AustraLia., Copland on Commerce and Business

and Monetarg PoLicy and Its Applieation to Australía; Mitls and

Benharn|s PrineipLes of Money Banking and Foreign Eæchange AppLied to

Australia, Brigdenrs study of ErnpLoyment ReLations and The Basie wage

and MiLfsts Taæation in Austz.aLia. It was clearry garling to copland that Gunn should presume to include amateur economics in his sociology teaching and, furtherrnore, bring the subject into dj-srepute in his

writing. Copland was not in favour of the amalgamation of econornics

into any department of social sciences as envisaged by Gunn or Irvine or Atkinson. tle believed such a departnent would encroach upon the domain of the separate disciplines - the very antithesis of their holistic argument. Moreover, he warned of intellectual dangers in

such schemes:

this tendency to treat the social aspect of a problem before its economic basis has been thoroughly examined would be encouraged.60

l{hen Copland made his tour for the Laura Spelman Rockefeller

Memorial, one of the areas he studied with acute interest at each port of call was -socíology. Ile wrote to G.L. Wood, his deputy in economics at Melbourne, that Maclver himself had little time for the vagueness of sociology although he was well disposed to the social sciences; from Yale he reported that he had "a little more light thrown

60Copland to the Registrar, 31 July lg25, Ir,lelbourne University Registry Files, 1925/408. copland argued in this comment on Gunnts proposal to establish a Department of Social Science and a chair of sociology that both economics and psychology should be further developed before any such moves were made. He noted that topics in sociology were already included for study in higher levels of economics courses. 226. on the sociology problem?r whiIe, at Birrningham, his doubts were further confirmed: I found here as elslwhere great scepticism about sociology and it is clear that some reconsideration must be given to the situation in N{elbourne. No doubt t stratl have a plan on my return.Gl His return coincided with the university inquiry into the I1I.E.A. affair

Gunn and sociology therefore remained intact. when "", "åppointed Coplandrs report on his tour and his recommendatíons on the social sciences suggested, however, that sociology not be an undergraduate subject because of its vagueness. Other social sciences provided,in his view, sufficient effective synthesis.62

The dénouement occurreld the following year, when the requirements for a new Ilonours school of econornics within the Faculty of Arts were course to be under Copland's jurisdiction being worked out. This "ts from the Faculty of Commerce and he emerged as the convenor of a committee of the Faculty of Arts inquiring into the future of sociology in relation to economics, philosophy and a course ca11ed modern political institutions. The report concluded that the actual teaching in socioJ.ogy did notrtcorrespond with the present title of the subjectrr - without specifying what that migh,t mean. It recommended that sociol- ogy be dismantled and the content of the course be re-organised into three new subjects: political philosophy, which l^tas to cover the history of political thought and be grouped in the philosophy school; constitutional history and international relations to be taken in the

6lCop1and to G. L. Wood, 31 August 1926. Copland Papers. 62D.n. copland, Studies in Economies and SociaL Seience, op. eit., p 33 and p. 36 . 227 history school; and modern political instjtutions which would be an evening course combining constitutional 1aw and potitical science.63

Gunnrs two former tutors, W. Macnahon Ball and P.D. Phillips, were to be in charge of the new subjects while Gunn, no longer having a field to profess, was relegated to his extension teaching and ad hoc work in sundry departments like education, philosophy and French. The changes came into effect in 1928 and, by 1929, Copland wrote of Macmahon Ball's work to Portus:

he has lifted the subject (sociology) on to a decent academic plane. He turned it from a flotsam and jetsam of everything into a well co-ordinated s'tudy of the history of Political Philosophy.64

In this instance, at the University of Melbourne in the post-

War years, sociology had a 'rpersona1rr history in the characters of these protagonists which hindered its permanent rooting. Both

Atkinson and Gunn made enemies quickly even among their W.E.A. colleagues. But this does not adequately explain the ultimate failure of the subject in this period nor why, as Warren Osmond perceptively asked, it left almost no direct progeny.65 The problem went deeper into the very nature of the subject as it was conceived and practiSed, and, beyond that, to the condition of Anstralian intellectual life itself. Sociology was viable when Anderson proposed it, ín I9I2, and when Atkinson introduced it, in 1918, precisely because the questions it raised and the contemporary nature of its concerns were not being studied coherently in the universities, but,

63Report of Connittee of the Faculty of Arts on Sociology, lg}g. Melbourne University Registry Files, 1929/56I. 6acopiand to Portus, 3 ApriI lg2g. Copland Papers. b5W. Osmond, rrAustralianisn and the Sociologist'r, unpublished paper given at the S.A.A.N.Z. Conference, August L972. 228. as this changed with the increasing professionalisation of other social sciences, it became more difficult to make out a case for what was dis- tinctive or indispensable in that sociology. There was no practice of the social neasurement in which Anderson, Irvine and others had proclained so much faith and which CopLand insisted on as the essence of social scj-ence inquiry. Gunn was not ignorant of empirical sociol- ogy - he had alluded to plans for a university settlement house where applied study of socj-al problems might take place - but nothing was ever done towards this sort of research. And, if there was no methodology or research to identify the specific nature of the fieId, there was also no legitimacy deriving from European sociological theory. Early sociology in Australia, like the W. E '4. u'hich promoted it, was much more indebted to British liberal social thought.

Certainly, beyond the conflict of powerful and hapless personal- ities and the problems of definition inherent in the subject, the failure of sociology to take root may also have been due to its failure to speal< to the realities of Australian political and social life in the way that, for example, econonics was able to. The pì.ura1- ist emphasis of Atkinsonrs and Gunn's sociology endorsed the devolution of authority - political, economic and industri.al - and stressed the vitality and autonorny of groups, Yet the doninant political culture in Australia valued none of this. In the 6tatist, oveT-governed and centralising Australia of these years ancl after, the theory of this sociology would have had as little bite as the appeals of the W.E.A. intellectuals urging the trade unionists to embrace moral citizenship.

On the other hand, the economics of D.B. Copland and his colleagues achieved their ascendancy in the social sciences and in the national life because they did serve the existing and growing needs of central governments. Copland hinself predicted the shift in his report on the 229. social sciences: In every field of economic and social life it is the group that predominates, whether it be the cornpany organisati-on of industry, the trade union or employersr association representing special interests, the political party in government, or the friendly society, or other group in social 1ife. We are therefore witnessing a developnent of social control through these agencies quite apart from the actions of the State. It is not necessary to refer to the fact that such group control is not new in history. lVe have it at present in a form which emphasises the special interest of groups, sometimes in opposition to the general interest, Tn these circumstances it is not diffi-cult to see the irnportance of further control by the authority of the State in many spheres. It is not intended here to offer an exposition of the functions of the State. Suffice it to say that it cannot ignore the need for some conscious effort at directing economic forces towards the public interest when they are being diverted by special groups in their own interests.bb The filst half of this statement described a condition of which the W.E.A. intetlectuals would have approved, at least in the early yeals of their caïeers. The pluralist devolution to which Copland referred was, in their social theory, evidence of the growing health o.f society. But, by the encl of the twenties, Copland had arrived at the paradign Australian,ans\^/er. The power of the central state was reasserted aS paramount over the potenti-al of devolution, and the science of economics was to be directed to its service.

66D.8. Copland, Studies in Economícs and SociaL Science, oP. cit." pp. 66-67. PART THREE

CHAPTER 8, Herbert Heoton: Hobort, 1914-1916 230.

The writer of Herbert Heatonrs obituary in the Amev'iean HistorLcaL Reuieu began with a brief declaration: "Herbert Heaton was a Yorkshire- ntanrr. l tf this were seen to be a telting epitaph after his fifty yeals in America, it nust have indicated much about his personal and his intettectual style in his early days in Australia. Born in the town of Keightey in 1890, he was educated nearer to Leeds at Batley Grammar School and then at Ntorley Secondary School. Although he was an Honours student in history at Leeds University fron 1908 to 1911, he regarded his education in econornics as crucial and his teacher, D.H. Macgregol, as something of a mentor. Macgregor, one of the pioneers of economic history in England wrote later, when he was Drummond professor of political economy at Oxford, that Heaton was the ablest student he had taught and that he had guided him to the study of economics. Graduating with first class honours, Heaton was awarded a Rutson research scholarship of Ê,70 for a thesis on industrial life in 18th century Yorkshir:e ancl, for the first ti,me, the West Riding Education

committee supplemented this with a special fellowship of f+0. Thus he was able to spend the next year at the London School of Econonics working rmder the direction of Dr Lillian Knowles on the Yorkshire textile industry and taking courses in econornics, conmerce, sociology and political science in the Universíty of London. His work there

gained him an lvl.A. from Leeds and he was then appointed in 1912 as assistant lecturer in econornics in the Faculty of Comrnerce under Sir William Ashley. In 1914, he was awarded the degree of Master of

Commerce from Birmingham and, when his extended research was published

as The Yoy.kshiy,e l'looLT.enand llotsted Industr,'Les, he was admitted to the

lObituary, Amer"Lean Histot'ieaL Reuieu, Vo1. 78, 1973, p. IL7L. 23I. degree of D. Litt. from Leeds University.2

When t-leaton arrived a few months later in Hobart as Director of Tutorial Classes and lecturer j.n econonics, he found an already formed class of forty students willing to spend their Friday nights on the study of econonic history.3 lVithin a fortnight he had added two more classes in the city and then he began extensive travelling into eveïy part of Tasmania giving lectures which were often preparatory to the establishrnent of a WEA centre.4 In 1919, the government funded a second ful l-time tutor and B.H. It'lolesworth was appointed to look after the north of the state. lleaton stayed in Ilobart for three years unti1, in 1917, he moved to Adelaide wh'ere he again filled the post of the

first Director of Tutorial Classes and lecturer in economics. The South Australian governnìent had been slower than was hoped in making noney available. In August 1925, Heaton left Adelaide, and Australia, to take up the chair of econornics and political science at Queens

University in Kingston,Ontario, He made a final move two years later to the University of Minnesota where he was professor and chairnan of the history department in his later years. After a career which gained him international recognition and professional honours - he was secretary of the Social Sciences Research Councilrs committee on research in

econornic history and from 1948-50 president of the Economi"c History Associatj-on - he retirecl in t95B and died in Minneapolis in 1975.5

2H. Heaton, Curriculum vitae, Melbourne University Registry Files 1924/ I24 (frorn Heatonrs application for the chair of commerce). 3Highaay, vol.6, no. 61, October 1913. A section ca11ed'tThe Finger Po-strrkept track of W.E.A. developments in English districts and Overseas. 4Heaton to A.J. Grant, 26 May 1919. Heaton Papers, tJniversity Archives, University of lvlinnesota, Minneapolis. At the time this rnaterial was consulted, it was organised in only a prelirninary way so that the categories for citation are extremely general. This is an eight page letter reviewing his first five years in Australia. sobituary, Amez.ican Hísl;orLcaL Reuieu, op. cit., p. II7I. 232.

Although hc m¿rintai.necl his interest in Australia for many years, he never returned here.

The two men on whose recommendation he was appointed to the University of Tasmanía - William Ashley and Albert Mansbridge - represented shaping forces in Heatonrs life. The way in which economic history developed as a field in England in its own right owed a great deal to I/r/.J. Ashley who occupied the first separate chair of economic history in the world, created for him at Harvard in 1892. Ashley had been inspired by Arrold Toynbee at Oxford and then by Schrnoller at

Berlin. He had left Oxford to becorne professor of political economy and constitutional history at the University of Toronto. In 1901, he

returned to England to occupy the Chair of Commerce at Birmingham

University and to establish a Faculty of Commerce there. Although

economic history had been added as a subject at Cambridge in 1875, as a field it found its stïongest roots in the new universities and in particular at the new London School of Economics.6 Heaton had graduated from a university that was only four years o1d when he began there and

he was appointed to one that was only twelve years old when he joined Ashley at Birmingham. In Australia, the University of Adelaide prided itself in being second only to Birmingham in the Ernpire in establishing a course in commercial training in 1902. It had been set up in response

to moves by the Adelaide Chanber of Commerce and had been modelled on

the example of Birmingham and London.T It was, therefore, particularly

apt and fortuitous for Adelaide to have Heatonrs services in the commerce

ssee N.B. Harte (eds.), The Study of EconomLc History, (London i97t) esp. Introduction. Also, T.C. Barker, '?The Beginnings of the Economic History Society", Econom'ic Historg Reuieu, Vol. XXX, no. 1, 1977, pp. l-19. 7H. Jones, The History of ConmereiaL Education ín South Austv'aLia, M.A. thesis), University of Adelaide, 1967), p. 186. 23s. course as a by-product of his appointnent to the Tutorial Classes. He becane immediately responsible for the teaching of economics and cotnmeïce at Adelaide and so brought to the task knowledge and experience acquired at the very source.

At Birninghan, Heaton had been jointly appointed to the Faculty of Cornmerce and the WEA, about half of whose classes in those years were devoted to rindustri-al historyt or to economics. Ashley, accepting the recommendations for Heaton from A.J. Grant, Lillian Knowles and

Albert Mansbridge, felt sure that this would be the beginning of a useful and distinguished caleer. He gave Heaton Tesponsibility for a weekly seminar with commerce students, over which Ashley himself presided, and for a conmerce course which, Ashley instructed him, was to begin with an outline of commercial history and then survey present

industrial conditions and problens in the United States. For the WEA portion of his work, Ashley specified a course in industrial history - twenty-four lectures and twenty-four classes followed by ten more intensive lectures.S Although Heaton was appointed in October, he could expect no salary before Christnas but was given permission to lecture further afield i-n such places as Gloucester, Wolverhampton and Shewsbury,

In 1913, the WEA in Yorkshire was an infant institution - J. Dover Wilson recalled it as a rtfeeble f1ame, little rnore than an inspirationtt where

not rnore than half a dozen men rnight be found sitting at Tawneyrs feet.

The heroic efforts of men like Tawney and CLay, Arthur Greenwood and a

joiner, Goerge Thompson, nourished the novement there into its healthiest

phase by the end of the War.9

BW. Ashley to Heaton, 27 to 30.Iune L9I2, Early Correspondence, Heaton Papers. 9J. Dover Wilson, t'Adu1t Education in Yorkshire", Jouv'rtal of AduLt Education, Vol. 11I, October 1928, pp. 47-50. 234.

Ashley advised that Heaton should try to nanage on his small salary and limited work for a year so that he could work on his book on the Woollen Industry which Ashley believed was an inportant contribution

and would fill valuable gaps in a new expanding field.l0 Heatonfs aim in the book was to link up the fourteenth century with the eighteenth and to throw light on the period between - the rise of industrial

society, the expansion of local nanufacture and its organisation and relation to the State. In particular, he hoped to place Yorkshire industry into a proper perspective in relation to other parts of England.ll The manuscript was not completed until Heaton had settled in Adelaide although the original thesis had been accepted by the Oxford Historical

and Literary Studies series in 1915. Ashley was excited by the book and

offered to edit and see it through the press for him: rtsuch a book

ought to give you a deserved reputation among economic historians, and

among the people of the West Riding.l2 The final publication was delayed by the War but when it appeared in 1920 i t was greeted with appreciative

Tesponse. Tawney wrote to Heaton, I'I thought it was extraordinarily good and in fact the best work on economic history that has appeared for the last ten or twelve years".I3

Heaton was a product of a working-c1ass Yorkshire heritage. His

father, Fred Heaton, was a member of one of the oldest and well-known trade unions, the Engineers Association. This was one of the first things Heaton spoke about to the Trades and Labour Council on his arrival

in Tasmania.14 Back in Yorkshire, the co-operative movement was proud

loAshley to Heaton, 30 June IgLz, Heaton Papers. llFI . Ileaton, The Ioy,kshír,e tlooLLen and. Woy,sted Industr.ies, Oxford Historical and Literary Studies, Vo1. l0 fOxford 1920) . 12Ash1ey to Heaton, 18 May 1914 and 15 August 1915, Heaton papers. l:R.H. Tawney to Heaton, 10 October 1921. Heaton Papers" L+Hobant DaiLy Post, 6 July 1914. 235

of Heaton as one of its contributions to the new Australian lll.8.4. The movement was an indigenous force in the ,1ives of Yorkshire people. Its adult education classes, Sunday schools, woments guilds and libraries were as integral to the social life and structure of West Riding towns and villages as the Co-operative Wholesale Stores. lt,teredith Atkinson had been a student of a correspondence class of the Co-operative Union before going on to Oxford and now Herbert Heaton was off to Tasmania.

ItFor the production of Herbert Heatonrr, said the Co-operatiue Neus, rrEmnanuel Booth of Huddersfield deserves the praiserr. It was through

Mr Boothrs classes that Heaton won the Co-operative Sumner School

Scholarship in 1908 and, while at Oxford that summer, he had encountered the 4ew1y formed WEA and net Mansbridge. Frorn then on, the paper continued, Fleaton turned his whole life to working-c1ass education and to the study of economic and industrial history. Professor lt{acGregor, under whon he studied at Leeds, was also well-known to Co-operative audience.l5 Heatonrs own views on Co-operation and the economic order will be explored later in this account but it is worth noting here that he spoke of it in a long letter: to the Hobart DaiLy Post soon after he arrived, recalling the pervasive role that it played in the part of England that he knew. In the Yorkshire village in which he had lived, he estirnated that there were 480 households and that fron these 440 members were enrolled in the village Co-operative society. There was not a side of the lives of the working-classes, he wrote, for which that movement did not nake some provision in its variety of social and educational activities. 16

r,Co-operal;iue Neüs, 14 April 1914, Newspaper Cuttings Book, Heaton Papers. l5Oailg Post, Heaton to editor, 10 lvfay 1915. 236

l;ronl tlre c:rrly Chartist days through the consolidation of working- clas-s organisations like Fred Heatonrs trade union, his friendly society and hjs Co-operative gïoup, to the young late-nineteenth-century social- ists who forned the Socialist Denocratic Federation and then the infant branches of the Independent Labour Party, Heatonrs Yorkshire was a nurseïy of northern radicalism. Philip Snowden had addressed his first socialist meeting at Heatonrs birthplace, Keighley , in 1894 and Ben Turner, one of the S.D.F. fo¡nders, was elected in 1892 as an I.L.P. menber to the school board at Batley where lleaton received his early education.lT Religious radicalisn, too, flourished in the area. At the tur:n of the century, Charles Gore, who later presi-ded at the cru- cial 1907 W.E.A.-Oxford Conference, established a community of monks cal1ed the Commutity of Resurrection at the nearby working-cIass village of Mirfield. It had among its nembers active socialists, and

a movement more radically committed than the Christian Social Union grew out of its ranks. This was the Christian Socialist League which had as its slogan "Christianity ís the religion of which socialism is the practicerr. It was active tilf just after the First World War

when many of its mernbers began to fragment into the various nuances of guild socialisn at that time challenging liberal and labour minds.lB

One ought not to conclude from these observations that Heaton came to Australia as a radical socialist. Indeed, he referred to himself as a sort of pre-war Lloyd George Liberal in upbringing and education.l9 Nor in his religious affiliation was he as orthodox in his comnitment to the jnstitution of the Church of England as his fellowW.E.A. Directors

i7J.F.c. Harrison, Learming and Lì'uing 1790-7960, esp. Ch. VII. l8see P. drA. Jones, I'Lte Chrístian SociaList ReuiuaL 1877-19L4, esp. Ch VII. rgAduez,tisen, 10 August L925. Heatonrs Farewell Speech. 237

G.V. Portus and F.A. Bland. Nevertheless, he came out of the related traditions of Co-operative socialisn and Anglican evangelical reformism which informed the provinci,al English w.E.A. Together with his training in econonic history this backgrotnd led him to ask certain questions about Australian society and to raise for discussion, in Tasnania and Adelaide, the kinds of questions which excited eamest debate in his intellectual worlds of Yorkshire and London'

Heaton had addressed the Christian Social Union several times in England. Tn Australia, he continued to talk to groups like the Anglican Diocesan Social Union or to address the Sunday evening congregation rrtTue in the Anglican catheclral. But his own inclination was towards social religion". The pulpit, he maintained, had no right to silence as long as the scluirers tenants weïe housed no better than his dogs'

Horv many clergymen busied thernselves with trade unions or Co-operation, he asked - "Iet them try to make Christianity mean something in everyday life".2O In 1915, he had spoken to the Morley Friends Adult School on trsome Conceptions of God" making clear that as far as he was concerned

the Fatherhoocl of God rnust imply the brotherhood of man and that this fact alone should negate class, birth and race and so make for revolution in the social relationships of the world. This was the type of theological justification to which the Christian Socialist bishops appealed in their adoption of the term, socialist. Rejectì-ng the notion of a personal God in his Heaven, Heaton preferred to think of a theist force which guided the universe but which u/as yet able to attend the individual. He did not see fornal Anglican ritual as intrinsic to direct commtlnion with

20Newspaper Cuttings Book, Heaton Papers' contains detailed reports (c. 1913) to Cheltenham Christian Social llnion of a sèries of leciures rtsweatingrr, and Birminghan 1,l¡.E.A. on rrstrikes and conciliation Boards'r, History of Wagesrr' ',Some Alternatives of the Present Systemtt and "The 238.

God; worship did not mean for him the rrlong or beautiful spoken prayers or grand music or an ornamental servicerr. Mi¡¡hty cathedrals and pompous

Sunday religion did not satisfy his demand for a more socially relevant church, one which, in his view, required both more Christian action and rnore inward conversion.2l Even on the occasion of his narriage he was not at ease with the Anglican service and wrote to his minister express- ing his difficulties. They were not, however, so profound as to deny him the ceremony or the Anglican b1essing.22 *****

What noved Heaton to accept a job in the farthest corner of the

Antipodes? There was a likely inducement to a yotrrg man of professional advancement in England via the stepping-stones of a colonial university

- it had been Ashleyrs path via Canada. There was also some suggestion

that that o1d benefactor of new countriestrthe threat of weak ltrngsr?may have added cause,23 but it is clear that Australia itself had an obvious attraction at this time to a student of industrial conditions and an historian of labour problems. At the time of his departure he believed that Australia was rra country which h¿rcl solved her Economj c and Political problemsil and her mediurn of solution, wages policy, was his particular

field of research.24 When he worked in London, his research had yielded

up hitherto unknoln'rVages Assessnents from the West Riding in the 17th and 18th century which Ashley urged him to publish.25 Lìis lectures to

the Birmingham I4l.E.A. and the Cheltenham C.S.U. had also been concentrate

2INewspaper Cuttings Book, Heaton Papers. Report on rrsome Conceptions of Godrr, talk to Nforley Friends Adults School (c. 1913). z¿Rev. T. Carr-Moyle to Heaton, 4 April 1914, Early Correspondence, Heaton Paoers. 23Ashley to Heaton, 1 Septenber lgI2, refers to inflammation of the lungs. Obituary ín Amev,ícan Hísl;oticaL Reuì.eu, op. cit., also suggests that rrweak lungsrr took Heaton to Australia. 24Heaton to Grant, 26 May 1919, Heaton Papers. 25Ash1ey to Heaton, 30 June lgl2, Heaton Þapers. See also H. Heaton, trAssessment of Wages in Yorkshire in 17th and 18 Centuries'r, EconomLc Jourvtal, June 1914. 2s9. on industrial conditions, strikes and conciliation boards, the mininun wage, the standard of living and the wage system.26 At the conclusion of one lecture, he gave his opinion that the insecuri-ty of voluntary agreements must be rernoved: Itsettlement by arbitration or conciliation must be made compulsory as in'Australia, New Zealand and Canada where it was working with fairly beneficial resul¡t.rt27

In retrospect, he was both disappointed and amused at his own naivetê. Five years 1ater, writing to one of his o1d teacirers, A.J. Grant, he reviewed his time in Australia and admitted that he had cone here full of ideas drawn from books: I expected to find a land where there were no strikes, where relations between labour and capital were harnonious, whete democratic sentiment hlas keen and political idealisn strong. 28 Again to a Canadian professol who wrote asking about Australiats economic experiments, he rePlied, I cane to Australia ten years ago largely on the strength of the reports, and found myself as much deceived as the inmigrant who lands here expecting to find employers waiting for him on the wharf and governnent officiats begging him to take up a farm free.29 IIe went on to say that he had spent rnuch of his time here studyì'ng actual conditions and that he hoped soon to publish a book on the subject that would particularly look at land settlement problems. No such extensive study reached the public but shorter articles on Australia,

26Newspaper Cuttings Book, I{eaton Papers' 2lftid., lecture on "strikes and Conciliation Boardsrt to Christian Social Union. 28Heaton to Grant, 26 May 1919, Heaton Papers. 29Heaton to MacGibbon, S l4ay L923, Heaton Papers. MacGibbon was professor of political economy in Alberta' 240 which were based on ground-breaking research, appeared in the EcononrLe

JourmaL, EcononrLea, and the Harvatd QuarterLg JourttaL of EconomLcs before he left Australia.30 He also contributed a lengthy study of land settlenent to Meredith Atkinsonrs Austr.aLia. Economic and politicaL

Studíes and published two editions of Mod.ev,n EeononrLe History uith speciaL reference to Austv,alía by 1925,

As soon as he arrived, Heaton was enthused by the possibilities for research in the exploration of the achievements and problems of a new country. IIis first venture into the area was a long paper read to the Royal Society of Tasmania just a year after he came. Entitled

"The Early Tasmanian Press and its Struggle for Freedomrr it was a study of the fortunes of the first establj-shed paper in Tasmania, Andrew Bentrs

Hobar.t Tou¡n Gazette which first appeared in June 1816. The content of the early issues of the paper was acutely observed but Heaton was also looking at the paper with the eye of an economic historian for a picture of the social and economic conditions of the settlement as reflected in government notices, advertisements, shipping and tradesments notices. He traced the rise of a flourishing little commercial society looking at its economic fluctuations and its currency problems. Bentts own problems began when he opened his paper to letters from correspondents in 1824, the same year in which Governor Arthur reached Hobart. Veiled criticisms of the adninj-stration began to appear in the Gazettn and, as these grew into outright criticisn, the govemment set up a rival paper

30H. Heaton, "The Basic l{age Principle in Australian Wages Regulationrr, Econom'Lc JotunaL, September 1927 , and rtsome Australian Evidence in Increasing and Diminishing Returnsrt, Economica, Journal of the L.S.E. 1924, and ItThe Taxation of Unimproved Value of Land in Australia", QuarterLy JournaL of EeononrLes, Vol. 39,1925. 241

and pressed a 1ibel suit against Bent who was eventually fined and im- prisoned for six months. Arthur did not think Tasmania ready for a free press and tried until his recall in 1gs6 to regulate newspapers by

legislation, a struggle which Heaton pursued in his article.3r The themes of censorship, the struggle for free debate and the state of the Australian pîess, which emerged from this initial foray into Aust- raliars past, would pïove prescient ones for Heaton both in Adelaide and in Hobart but, at the tine when he gave this paper, July 1915, hís

1ive1y interest was to demonstrate another of his continuing preoccup-

ations - the need to study and teach about Australia, past and present.

In Hobart, Heaton joined a university staff of eleven and a student body of one hundred and fifty. He described the amount of work he had

to accornplish as 'killing' but it was stimulating because he had the freedon to innovate. Amazed that nowhere in Australia in 1914 was there ally course of Atl-stralian histor:y, and that the study of European history

did not yet come up to the rgth century, he began a course on Europe from 1815 to 1914 and enjoyed introducing Australian history as well.32 when he was elected to the council of the Royal Society of Tasnania, along with L.F. Giblin, a firm patïon and supporter of the w.E.A., Heaton

immediately moved that a new section F be formed to cover and promote the study of Australasian history, geography and economics.33 'rrhis countrytrhe wrote later to Grant,trabounds ín subjects for or1ginal work

and I dearly wanted to get someone to work on the documents,,.34

3lH. ttThe Ijeaton, Early Tasrnanian Press and Its struggle for Freedomil, Papers and Proceedíngs of the RogaL societg of Tasmañla foz. thà yean 1216, Hobart 1917, pp. I-27. 32Heaton to Grant, Uãaton papers. 33Minutes of the council, l0 April 1916, papen and. pz,oceedings of the I?y"L Society of Tasmania, 1916, pp. 275_224. r+Heaton to Granto Heaton papers. ?L'

In his capacity as lecturer in economics and history, he assessed the current teaching of economics at Tasmania as about the standard of trMrs Fawcettrs notorious little primer'r. He introduced a course of forty lectures on economic history and upgraded economics to a more substantial sixty 1ectures.35 Outside the uníversity, Heaton argued, the value of economic history could not be overestimated. It was part of a broad and liberal education which could enlarge I'the petty bounds which mar our politics".36 The worker should have nore than an understanding of the history of econornic development: he should appreciate the working of the economic factor in history. Heaton was h"ppy to lecture on subjects like 'rThe Va1ue of Historyrr and'rThe Evolution of the Idea of Historyrr as well as his nain subject, the growth of nodern econolnic society. By the tine he left England, econonic history was fairly well established as a legitinate area of inquiry, but, in 1915 in Tasmania, it was probably no rnderstatenent of the sophistic- ation of the art which 1ed Heaton to explain that there was more in history than simply dates and batttes and that one must consider how men earned their livelihood and lived in their towns. Adam Smith and Marx, he told his audiences, had turned menrs minds to the economic causes behind the progress of nations and that, as an example, even the present war was undoubtedly caused by economic factors.3T

The W.E.A. course in econonic history spanned the period 1760 to

I9I4. It began with a study of industrial and social conditions in

Europe, moved through the agrarian and industrial revolutions and added the commercial revolution in trade, transport and commtrnication develop- ment, followed by the organisation of capital in joint stock companies,

35 tbì.d 36noiLy. Post, 16 July 1914. Interview with Heaton. QqilyrlDaily Post, 2 October 1914. Report of lecture on "The Value of Historyt'. Post, 9 April 1915. Reþort of lecture on 'rThe Evolution of thê Idea of History'r. 243. trusts and combines. Students then studied the economic and social philosophies of the 19th century fron Snith to Marx and the Socialists.

A lecture on free trade and tariff reacti-on both in Britain and in new countries like Austraria led on to a consideration of the State in relation to industrial laws and wage regulations. Three lectures were given to the history of the trade union movement and then a series was delivered on alternatives to the status quo, to socialism and its development in Australasia, to s1.ndicalism, to the Co-operative movement and Co-partnership. After a brief discussion of the economic development of Ireland, an account of the wage systern and the standard of living led up to a final recapitulation which posed the question of the future of political and industrial democracy. A short readíng list included

Toynbee and Beard on the industrial revolution, D.H. MacGregor on the evolution of industTy, J. clayton on trade unionism and Co-operation,

Rarnsay MacDonaldt s Ihe SociaL Mouement and PhiIip Snowdent s SociaLism and syndicaLísm. on Australia, he could only recommend, in 1914, victor Clarkts 1904 work on The Labouu, Mouement in Austz,aLì.a and recourse to the cornmonwealth Quarterly Bulletins on Labour.38 Another lecture series for the University Extension Board again concentrated on the history of wages. He explained the wage contract and surveyed wage regulation fron mediaeval tines to the twentieth century. He dealt in detail with Australiars wage mechanisms, the Arbitration system, and the inter-relation of wages and prices and the standard of living.39 In the next year,1915, Heaton gave, among others, six public lectures

3STyped Syllabus of Heatonrs course Econonric Histozn¿ 1760-1914, for Tasrnanian I¡I.E.A. rgL4, Bland Papers, Sydney 3goailg university Archives. Post teports this series of lectures through sâptenber 1914. 244. outlining the history of trade unionism and six lectures on more contïoversial matters in rtsome Aspects of the Great 1a¡t1 .rr40

The question of the political stance of the W.E.A. was raised in an interview with Heaton almost as soon as he stepped off the boat.

He replied confidently that the W.E.A. r^ras rrnon-partyrt political:

'rWe face politics as a science, just as we face economics as a scie¡s"rr.41 Political neutrality was easily asserted but not so readily conceded. Heatonrs first experience of the problens involved in the public discussion of current issues suggested strongly that some Australian connunities did not unequivocally share his faith in academic object- ivity. At the end of 1914 Heaton addressed hinself to the pressing question of the Initiative and Referendum. The lecture was advertised thus:

Mr Heaton will be dealing with a problem in Governrnent which he will consider Historically, Scientifically, and in the Abstract. N0 ATTEMPT WILL BE MADE TO MAKE THIS LECTURE THE OCCASION OF A PARTY DE},Í]NSTRATION. Mr Heaton will deal NOT WITH POLITICS, but with this instrument of Government, scientifically or economically considered. There will be no politics on the platform BEFORE OR AFTER. This is a lecture for knowledge and knowledge only.42

This was a lecture for "SCIENCE NOT POLITICS" - for information, "not a call to Arns!". Heaton approved the Initiative and Referendum in his Lecture on the understanding that the people be educated to use it effectively. He explained the example of the Swiss cantons and how the system rvorked in America. It arose, he said, from dissatis- faction with the remoteness of parliaments, from the peoplers desire for more direct control of their representatives. Intelligent and

)oMeneurr¿, 22 April 1915. arDq,iLu Post, 16 July 1914. a2naiLy Post, 4 Decenber 1914. 245. informed citizens must be the basis of such a system and the average voter must.become more politically interested. As to whether the

Initiative and Referendum would work in Tasmania, Heaton pointed out the difficulties of the Tasmanian electoral provisions in that the

Legislative Assembly and the Legislative council were elected on different franchises. To make the Initiative and Referendun truly responsive, he suggested that the council should be elected by adult suffrage as in the Lower House.43

' The lecture provoked a hostile editorial fron the Hobaz,t Meneurg and was the beginning of the Mercur"yrs suspicious opposition to Heaton and the cause of worker education. A 'rprofessorrr of the university, announced the editorial writer, had attacked one of our Houses of Parliament. He had referred Ëo the eemple of the Swiss cantons that was much favoured by Labour proponents of the rnitiative and

Referendum and had gone so far as to advocate adult suffrage for the Legislative Council. The It4ev,euny then ventured to inform Heaton that trthere are a great many influential people in Tasmania who regard such a step as neither desirable nor reforming".44 The writing of explanatory, clarifying and self-defensive letters to newspapeïs was to absorb much of Heatonrs time in Australia. This time, he patiently reiter- ated that his lecture was only an explication of a system and its problems. He also politely disclaimed the honorary title of rProfessoïr instructing the lflereurg rather mischievously that rtnot every journalist in your offices is an editor and not eveïy university teacher is a professor".45 He had a few weeks earlier quèried a Mencurg report on

43naiLy Post, 8 December 1914. a4Meneuny, editorial, 9 December 1914. +5Oaily Post, 12 December 1914. 246

the 8-llour Day celebrations which gave the impression that the B-hour day was prevalent in 'Merrie Engrand during the palmy days of the trade guilds't. Quoting a 1495 statute which decreed long arduous hours of

work, he urged an end to such romantic views of the past,46 The Mencuz,y

became highly cynical about the whole concept of educating the worker and devoted an editorial to its anxieties, on the occasion of the first annual conference of the w.E.A. in April 1gls. l\rhy, the editorial asked, should the worker have special treatment in the matter of education and what of the content of that education? They ask for the bread of a higher spiritual culture and they are fobbed off with such stõnes as the history of unions ._.. Does any Australian worker rea11y languish and yearn for the dry-as-dust details of sordid and-by- gone industrial struggles in the 01d World? what good did it atl do them, especially as expounded by an "English theorj-st"? Art, science and philosophy would do more to uplift the worker in his hard-earned leisure: Here in Australia, if not in Europe, rworkersl tattainedt our have surely and can now turn their minds to something nobler than the past- and -done_for squabbles of Capital and Labour in countries under far less happy conditions.4T with more noney and lecturers, Heaton replied, the w.E.A. could provide rspiritualf the more courses the Mercura yearned for, but he would disagree that all unionists in AustraÌia were informed of their situation and happy in it - trfrom your eclitorials I have often learned that Australian trade unionism is chock ful1 of faults, tyranny etc.rr Perhaps, he added, the struggle to gain industrial rights was as heroic as that of those who earned the v.c. on the battlefield.4B

46_Menc:utg, 25 Nove¡nber +/Tb¿d., 1914. editorial, "The Education of the orker?r, l7 April 1g15 'tgIb¿d., Heaton to editor, 22 Ãpril 1g1S. 247 .

At the Inaugural Conference of the W.E.A., Heaton alluded briefly

to the War and the nee.d for men to study all the conditions arising from it. He was doubtful that this would be the war to end all wars but he agreed that the world was certainly in a melting-pot that would

test the future of denocracy as a form of governnent.+g He developed his analysis of the War in the series ??Some Aspects of the Great Wartr which he gave in the winter of 1915. Anong the general causes of the

War, he listed the groupings of Powers in alliances and ententes and the growth of national rivalries but he insisted on the irnportance of

economic factors in the struggle. He mentioned trade rivalry between

Austria and Serbia, Russiars need for a southern port, Germanyts

economic expansion in her colonies. He explained Norrnan Angellts theories that it would not pay any nation to win the l\rar and that the

country which received an indemnity night be poorer than the one which

paid it. The costs of the lVar were now becoming apparent and both sides would feel it in taxation, high prices and unemployment. He claimed that the reports fron England about the attitudes of the workers to the l{ar were distorted when he compared the English papers which he received

to the cables which filled Tasmanian newspapers. These he regarded as coming fron the British papers which were antagonistic to the trade unions, and, in the case of the Welsh minerst strike, inclined to exploit patriotism for the benefit of armaments firns. He concluded

this lecture with the hope that the lt/ar would give impetus to democracy and to the proper control of foreign affaírs.s0

Heaton lectured on the War in more renote corners of Tasnania than Hobart, and when in late August, he addressed an audience at

asDaiLy Post, 10 April 1915. sooaiLu Post, Report of lecture onrrEconomics and the Warrr, 20 JuIy 1915. 248

Scottsdale, a srnall town in the north-east, he drew dov,rn upon his head a rain of censure and accusations of unpatriotic utterances. The objectionable remarks concerned the problen of how to end the War. He was quoted in the ScottsdaLe Arhsentise'r,rand. the Mencurg, as having said sad though it night be, perhaps a better effect would be made on the nations by the ending of the present war in a draw than in a decisive victory to eíther side, as countries engaged in conflict would then see that they had sacrificed their best manhood, spared no noney or effort and were no bettel off, and would determine that a calamity like this would never happen again.sl

This reaction of the conservative section of Tasmanian opinion to these views might have been anticipated in the words of the Hon. A.W. Loone M.L.C. as he closed the Scottsdale meeting: t'he would rather see the l\rar last five years than not see a nation which had conunitted such atrocities in Belgiun absolutely crushed.rr The Chairman of the

Universityrs Extension Board telegraphed Heaton that he had better send a fu11 explanation of the lecture a¡d his reported censure by the chairman of the meeting, and warned him to rrabstain from expressing personal opini-on reflecting on national pol i.y" .52 According to

Mr. J.B. Hayes, who led the attack on Heaton in the Parlianent soon after, Heaton was reported as saying that the A1lies had probably been as guilty of as many atrocities as the Germans and that the best thing would be for War to end in a draw. Another M.P., Mr Payne, added that his sources at Scottsdale remembered Heaton as preferring a fdrawl because if the Allies won I'there was a danger of their suffering from

SrMencury, 25 August 1915. rzTelegraph in Newspaper Cuttings Book, Heaton Papers. 249 a swelled headrr. Nlr Hayes was satisfied that the people of Tasrnania

'rwere not sending their sons to the Dardanelles to fight for a draw'r. The House decided on the Minister of Educati.onrs proposal, to examine the reports of the investigation of the affair carried out by the

University's Extension Board and by the University Counci1.53 The

Extension Board had however accepted Heatonts own written explanation.

He adni-tted that he canvassed the three possible outcomes of the War,

defeat, draw or victory, maintaining that he had "plumped for the third, and had based the rest of the lecture on that assumption, even to re-

drawing the map of Europe at Germanyts expense. He failed to see how he had given the impression that the Al1ies should not fight to the

end.54 The Hobav't DaiLy Pos'b noted that the University Council had received the Extension Boardrs report and that Mr Ileaton was exonerated

from any serious offence. It did, nevertheless, suggest that Heaton would do well to avoid the subject in such arrdelicate and perilousrl

tine.55 The Mercuï,A was not so easily satisfied and denanded that the Ilouse should inquire into the report. Its editorial stated

Mr Heaton is being paid by Tasmanian taxpayers and certainly if he made such remarks is out of place in Tasmania ancl should be dismissed without de1ay.56

A joint neeting of the W.E.4. classes, addres-sed by L.F. Giblin, then voted a notion of conficlence in Heaton5T and, a week later, the Minister

for Education made a statenent on the matter incorporating Heatonts owl

explanation which convinced members of the House that he was 'rloya1rr.58

53Mez,cttz,y, 16 September 1915. Report of discussion in the House of Assembly on 15 September. 54Heaton to Chairman of Extension Board of the University of Tasmania, 9 September 1915. Newspaper Cuttings Book, Heaton Papers . Mez,cuny, 24 a1 statement on matter to the House.

915. 250.

However, Mr Loone, in the Legislative Council still wanted to move for a Select Conmittee to inquire into Heatonrs "disloyaltytt. In the University Senate, Dr Bottrill denanded that the University pass a notion of regret at Heatonts lecture.59 This nove was defeated as Heaton maintained the support of the University and the W.E.A. while the DaiLy Post condenned Bottrill for his rrheresy hunt".60 By now, the episode had reached the BuLLetin which accused Heaton of hoping that the Allies would not win. In the same issue, rrThe Red Page'r carried lurid atrocity stories in its review of Verhaerenrs Belgiumts

Agony and, on the opposite Page, Heaton was described as an "imported person, who doubts whether any good purpose would be served by walloping the apostles of Kultur who ravished Belgium ...rr.61 On the other hand, he may have been briefly consoled by a letter fron a teacher at the Hutchins School in Hobart who reminded hin that other professors

like George Arnold Wood and Walter Murdoch had spoken out on public matters and dared to suggest some "blenish on the national spiritrr.62

When it had all subsided, Heaton collected all the reports and cuttings, pasted then into his scrap-book and headed the whole thing, rrThe Scottsdale Smelltr. Whatever else, he concluded, it was good advertise-

ment for the W.E.A.

The kind of discussion of the War in which Heaton engaged in his lectures in Hobart, and continued to engage in when he moved to Adelaide, reflected his own identification with the debate on the War that was

sgft¿d., 27 October 1915 and DaiLg Post, 30 September 1915. 60naiLy Post, 2 October 1915. 6rBuLletin, 16 septenber 1915. 625.C. Smith to Heaton, 16 September f915. Newspaper Cuttings Book, Heaton Papers. 25r.

raging in Britain and in the United States. Justifying himself to the

university council and the Minister, he acknowledged that he had

considered the origins of the l{ar. He had raised as an open issue the

problem of how the war night be brought to an end and had questioned

publicly if it would be the war to end all wars. rn his own words,

he had taken a "detached't view of the atrocity stories, advocating a rrneutralrr commission nore than Lord Brycef s to inquire into thein, and he had been critical of the o1d diplomacy and the conduct of foreign policy. All of this is recognisable as an echo of the position of the

British Radical Liberals whon Heaton read and whose books he recomnended

- Bertrand Russel1, G. Lowes Dickinson, Norman Ange11, E.D. Morel,

J.A. Hobson, Graham wallas - and of Labour leaders, Ràmsay MacDonald and Philip Snowden. These men belonged to a long tradition of dissent from official British foreign policy and they questioned the orthodoxies which supported the lVar.63 Before the War they had condenured secret diplomacy and advocated ful1er publicity of foreign policy and more parlianentary control. They tended to the view that Germany did not want war but had been forced into it by Franco-Russian hostility and by the British Foreign office suspicion of Gerrnany which had drawn

Britain closer to France. At the end of 1915, they had begtm to discuss openly a peace by negotiation, an ending of the conflict by compronise rather than by military victory. Almost as soon as hostilities were declared they had set up the Union of Denocratic control as an organ of opposition to government policy and their airns, as they were developed and modified, were eventually those adopted by woodrow wilson and progressivein Britain and the Ûnited States. They wanted a more open

6 3see A.J . P . Taylor, The Ty,oztbLemakey,s (London l9S 7) . 252. diplomacy, a more internationalist approach to proble¡ns which would mitigate the power of national governments to declare wars, and, from the beginning, they insisted on peace terms which would not huniliate the defeated nation nor arrange artificial barriers which would only cause further wars. From 1916, spokesnen like H.N. Brailsford and J.A. flobson worked on drafts of the peace they wanted while others, like Lowes Dickinson and Leonard Woolf, pushed for a League of Nations.64

The official policy of the government, of Lloyd George and conservatives such as Bonar Law, Curzon and Milner was that the War rnust be fought to the finish and Germany must be annihilated. It was these views which, Heaton cornplained, dorninated the Australian papers because they took their cables fron conservative British papers. He felt the absence of debate within Australia, not just on international matters but also on appraising Australian society. This was what he had in mind when he wrote to A.J. Grant in 1919: rrWe have no free lances such as Hobson or Brailsford in Australi"rr.65 H" was also pointing to the sort of position which these left-liberal intellectuals occupied in the spectrum of debate. If Heaton himself was not in direct syrnpathy in 1915 with the U.D.C., he certainly developed his attitudes to the settlenent of the War along their 1ines. A.J.P. Taylor renarked that the U.D.C. lar.mched a version of international relations which gradually won acceptance far beyond the circle of those who were aware that they were being influenced by it. Heaton was an example of that influence but in Australia he was in a context which was far

64see Marvin Swartz, The union of Democnatic ContnoL in Bv,itísh PoLitics During the Pi.nst trloz,Ld [,lar, (Oxford, 1971) . 6SHeaton to Grant, Heaton Papers. 25s. less tolerant of such influence than the intellectual world from which he came. In Australia, the prosecution of the War was enthusiastically supported by the government, the press and influential and conservative sections of the public - and, probably, by rnost ordinary people. Dissent from this support was aired in the Labour press along socialist- internationalist lines so that, as in so nany other issues, the debate in Australia was polarised along class lines. In England, the U.D.C. decided not to express its dissent on the question of conscription but to concentrate on the larger issue of the settlement of the War and its implications. In Australia, the conscription battle consumed all the intellectual energies that night have played on the wider problern and so internalised the War debate in bitter social struggle.

Uncharacteristically, Heaton does not appear to have become publicly involved in controversy over conscription for he had probably seen the dangers in the example of his counterpart in N.S.W., Meredith Atkinson. Atkinson had taken up the cause of conscription as a for.nder of the Universal Service League even before conscription threatened to become a necessity and his activities did serious damage to the W.E.A. in the eyes of the trade unions. The W.E.A. supported Atkinsonf s right to a private opinion, but, in fact, his pro-conscription stand pernan-

ently alienated many of his W.E.A. co1leagues.66 Heaton was predictably anti-conscription - and anti-Atkinson. 0n the eve of the second refer-

endum he speculated in a letter to Portus, I suppose by next Christmas, if tyest wins tomorrow, it will be Private Portus, Brigadier Heaton, and Generalissimo Atkinson. 0r perhaps as an alternative, Citizen Portus will be presiding over the Revolutionary Tribunal, Citizen Heaton will be leader of the South

66Portus , HappA Highuays, pp. 173-175. 254

Australian Bosheviks, whilst Atkinson will be rattlino in a tumbril down to the guillotine at Port ivtetbournel6T

When Heaton left Hobart in 1917 he hoped for broader horizons in

Adelaide. Tasmania was a bumow of |tgo-sloweryrr and he found its Anglo-conservative structures both heavy and pretentious. He told the readers of his article on Australia in his o1d Morley Secondary School

rnagazine that a Yorkshire denocrat did not readily r.nderstand why a supposedly radical yor¡ng country entertained such frills and fopperies as those associated, for example, with Government House.6B He wrote

an account of Tasmanian politics which reninded William Ashley of gntario in the late eighteen-eighties.69 After his Tasmanian experiences, the irreverence of the Yorkshire democrat was not surprising but neither was it the most prudent temperament for one seeking acceptance in AdeIaide. *****

6THeaton to Portus, 18 Decernber 1917. Heaton Papers. 6BArticle written by Heaton for Magazine of Morley Secondary School, 1919. Reprint in Heaton Papers. 6gAshley to Heaton, 3 October 1916. Heaton Papers. CHAPTER 9, Herbert Heoton: Adeloide, I9I7-7925 255

The opportunity to leave Tasrnania came in August 1916 when Meredith

Atkinson telegraphed Heaton that a substantial grant was nohr expected from the South Australian government to set up a Department of Tutorial

Classes in the university and that he had recornrnended him for the job at a salary of f,OOO.1 Heaton supplied his particulars and the post was offered to him, although a brief shadow loomed over his move when, in

November, the Legislative Council rejected the budget proposals which

contained the W.E.A. grant.2 At the same tirne, Atkinson arrived in Adelaide and after he had lobbied all the appropriate powers of govern- ment and university to ensure that the money would not be held up indefinitely,3 Crawford Vaughan, Premier and Minister for Education, did assure the universi,ty that a reduced grant would be forthcorning, but not until April, 1917.4 Atkinson alerted Heaton to the precarious nature of a tenure which depended on direct government grants subject to political and financial fluctuations. Heaton, however, accepted

the appointment in December 1916.

Atkinson also expli citly encouraged Heaton to expect rapid advance- ment at Adelaide:

unless sonlc hitch occurs you wi-11 definitely be offered the post of Director of Tutorial Classes, and will be the first considered for the Professorship of Economics when the extra money is available"5

The allusion to Heatonrs chances for a possible future chair of econonlics must have been based on private r.rnderstandings following Atkinsonrs conversations because there was no mention of such a prospect even in

lM. Atkinson to Heaton, 24 August 1916. Correspondence 1916-36" Heaton Papers. 2Atkinson to Heaton, 23 November 1916. Heaton Papers. University of Adelai de Council lvlinutes, 24 Novenber 1916. 3Atkinsott to Heaton, 23 November 1916, Heaton Papers. 4university of Adelaide Files (called Docl

As lecturer in economics, Heaton was taking over from William

Mitche11, who,among his other teaching, had provided the little econonics that was available to students. lt4itchell was very happy to vacate the role and remove the title from his chair. In fact, he assured Heaton, he would find "a clear field practically from the start'r. He had been able to lecture only once a week in economics and so the students were required to do most of the work privately; the subjects he tried to cover were distribution, foreign trade, consumption and production,

money and, if he had time, public finance. He stretched the course over two years but could not begin a new course until the other was conplete.

He explained that there were two sets of students who took economics,

those j.n the Diploma of Commerce and those taking it as part of a B.A. - Heaton would be responsible for both. Fina1ly, he promised Heaton his support and regretted that this was not the most auspicious time to begin at the u¡riversity because the War had meant a lack of students

6wi1liam Mitchell to Heaton, 11 Decerber 1916. Heaton Papers. 257 . and the controversy \^/ithin the Labour Party over consc.ription had made thc W.ll.A. task nore cli ff icult and sensiti've. 7

Atkinson also gave Heaton his analysis of the situation into which he was coming. His accoul"rt of his Adelaide visit was an extraordinary document considering that Atkinson's owrl pro-conscription campaign would almost wreck: -1 the lV'E.4. in Sydney: I attended the annual meeting of the w.E.A. in November and saw eveTy sign of a storm between the local people on the conscription issue. In my opening address I made an appeal to thern to sink all party differences,. They rose nobly to the occasion, returning most of the old officers, though these appeared to be nainly Conscriptiolrists.ItisagooclthingthattheW.E.A. should be saved from partisan conflicts

The current president of the l^l.E.A., Ton Ryan, M.L.A., was, he continued, an "Irish wind-bag'r, not to be trusted with anything. The secretaty' victor cromer was a good chap but I'he is an occultist and a visionary whose views on the New Jerusalem are apt to qualify his W.E.A. utilityrr' Council menbet, 1l¡.C. Melbourne and another, Delderfield, were deemed, respectively, a trade' r:nionist of 'rripe experiencerr and a rrdark horse run in the interests of the anti.-conscriptionistsrr. As for the

governing Vaughan family, Atkinson described them as somewhatborngeois in their outlook but "quite progïessive enough for your pur:pose with an understanding of what cultuïe means'r. With somewhat anomalous logic in the light of the above he concluded that lleaton would not have much trouble steering clear of partisan politics - indeed, he thought that since Heaton was himself far fron bej.ng a conscriptionist "it would do no harm for that fact to become known amongst some of the stalwarts of the Trades Ha1l". Again, in this letter Atkinson returned to the

z tui.d. 258 certainty that Heaton would soon be given a chair: There is no reasonable doubt that through the new bill to be soon presented to Parlianent you wilt get the professorship; that is Mitchell's fixed intention, though he wiit of course expect a period of probation. B

This early correspondence of Mitchell and Atkinson contained indications of the potential difficulties which awaited Heaton when he took up his appointment in Ádel,aide, early in 1917. As in Tasmania, his role was a dual one. In the university he was to define and develop an area of scholarship as lecturer in economics and in his trexpectationsrr, own mind, this appeared as a lectureship with however loosely or improperly conferred by Atkinson. As Director of Tutorial Classes, his teaching was directed outside the university to the public, and to the worker in particular. Here within his clientele there were serious divisions, both during the War and after, as rninds were turned to the question of industrial and social reconstruction. In his university teaching he had to balance or blend the dual interests of an eclucation in economics.with the requirements of business nen for a

commercial training. He was, therefore, answerable to the government which paid hirn, to the university which employed him, to the Chamber

of Comrnerce in whose interests the Diploma was largely run and to the W.E.A. in whose cause he had come to Australia in the first place. Outside the university in the public forum, the minefields of partisan

politics demanded a trickiness of footwork that the robust and forthright Yorkshirernan could not - or would not - mastel. As a consequencerhis caïeer at Adelaide was seriously blighted until in 1925 he acknowledged his position to be finally i[rtenable and left Australia. *****

BAtkinson to Heaton, 26 Jartuary I9I7. Heaton Papers 2s9.

The Diploma of Commerce had begun in Adelaide in 1902 in response to moves nade by the Chamber of Comrnerce. It was, as noted earlier, the first of its kind in Australia and second only to Birmingham and London" Beginning as the Advanced Comrnercial Certificate, it was supported from the outset by the Chamber of Cornmerce whose representatives provided the president and vice-president of the r.rniversityrs Board of Commercial Studies which administered the course. In 1904, Mr Joseph Fisher left a gift of f1,000 to encourage commercial education by providing a prize medal ancl funding a series of annual lectures, the first of which was given in that yeat by Henry Gyles Turner. In 1908, the Certificate was elevated to a Diploma of Conmerce which was taken mainly by part-tine students from business-houses which paid theil expenses and gave then preferment on completion of the course.9 In 1912, the University of

Sydney had led the way in the for.rrdation of a chair of economics, which was given to R.F. Irvine, and, at the end of the War, it was anticipated that the Universities of Melbourne and Queensland would soon rnake a start in the area but in both cases this was deferred. Hobart was next, in 1920, in establishing a chair of economics, appointing D.B. Copland. At the Univer-sity of Melbourne there had been a move in 1916 to enter the field of teaching commerce. Seeking the advice of a Sydney business

man on the training offered urder Irvine at Sydney, W. Harrison Moore had written to Henry Braddon of Datgety and Co. l0 Braddon had, however, forwarded the inquiry to G.C. Henderson at Adelaide, believing that the

courses in commerce there were more appropriate to the equiprnent he

9Board of Commercial Studies, University of Ade1aide, to Education Office, Melbourne outlining history of the commercial course, 24 JuIy 19f6. University of Adelaide Docket no. 303, 1916. l0university of Adelaide Docket no.7, I9I7. Il.Braddon to Flarrison Moore, 12 December 1916. 260. thought th¿rt lx¡sjncss notì necclcd.l I

Despite its reputation, it was clear to the Chanber of Commerce by 1918 that Adelaide's Diploma needed renovation and that higher commercial training wanted rnore vigorous promotion. Accordingly, the

Board of Comrnercial Studies appointed Heaton, William Mitchell and its president, J.R. Fowler, to a cornmittee to report on the re-organisation of the Diploma Course. The committee was to consider also the extension of the course to students from other professions such as engineering, nining and the Public Service. A third mandate was the question of raising the Diploma to a Degree and the institution of a chair of conmerce. Heaton drew up a scheme which recomnended these developments and which revj-sed the courses within the Diploma, suggesting the addition of public administration (then taught only by F.A. Bland at Sydney), statistics, Australian industries, industrial organisation and practice, transport and marketing, and insurance. The Degree course would be provided by further study in these subjects and by the addition of other courses as well as a foreign language. In particular, advanced economics would be required along wj-th another course frorn Arts or Science.l2 The Board accepted the proposed draft for a more intensive education in its future Degree and agreed to forward it to the Council but they were wilting to approve the revisions only for the existing Diploma.l3 The introduction of a

Degree was at that point thwarted by the Chamber of Commerce who advised the r.uriversity that

11 H. Braddon to Henderson, 16 December 1916. l2Minutes of the Board of Cornnercial Studies, 11 June 1918 13 tb¿d., 1 7 september 191 8 . 26t.

the time is not yet ripe for the creation of a Degree Course in Commercc, as the Commerce of thc State is not yet of such extensive growth as to provide a sufficient class of leisured yor.rng men willing or so circumstanced as tb be able to devote the necessary time to such a course.14

Heaton was therefore eageï to cast a wider net for his potential students than those business appïentices of 1ittle leisure and means.

He approached the Pubtic Service Conmissioner to see if the government would recogtise work done in the Diploma course in the training of civil servants and, after consultation, it was agreed that the Diploma

in Comnerce woulcl be a condition for appointment to higher grades in the Service.l5 As an increasing number of teachers began taking the courses in the Diploma, the Department of Education also awarded recognition to the new subjects in economics. I6 It was, howevel, through the Arts Degree that Heaton was able to extend the range and depth of the study of economics and economic history. tlnder his tutelage, economics became a three-year sequence with a research essay required for advanced economics. But there was as yet no provision for the Honours fourth year which Heaton deemed essential to scholarly work in the subject. l7

Heatonts most interesting and far-sighted innovation was to be traced quite directly to his W.E.A. role. In 1919, he gained approval for a new Diploma of Economics and Political Science which was to cater for mature men and wonen who had proved themselves capable students in the three-year tutorial class programs. lB The first Federal Conference

t4ftid., 5 November 1918. tslb¿d., 10 December 1918 and lt Nfarch 1919. l6ttlcCoy, Director of Education, to Registrar, 7 April 1922. Docket no' '23I, 1922, lTuniversity of Adelaide Calendar 1922. 18cable sent 14 october 1919 by lvlitchell from Scotland permitting Diploma to proceed; passed 10 November 1919 by University Council. Universitl' of Adelaide Docket no. 618, f919. 262. of the W.E.A. was held in Adelaide in 1918 and the idea of such a course was discussed with a view to training future tutors for the

W.E.A. who would otherwise find a conventional B.A, toottnarlow and tortuousrt for their special needs. What was wanted was an advanced program which would be more relevant to the current denand for econonics, economic history and political science. A second consideration, as Heaton explained itrwas that of providing "trained menrr for political life. The menbers of the Liberal Party generally had easy access to education but Labourf s candidates needed special facilities for the study of subjects which would prepare them for their political work. The day might even come, mused Heaton, when a political party night refuse to ïecognise the candidature of an r¡reducated nan:

when that time does come a new atmosphere will pervade our parliamentary halls. One nember will quote Hegel - or Heaton - instead of Hughes; another will take as his authority not Ryan, but Rousseau; a third will fal1 back not on Tudor, but on Taussig, and at political meetings the time-honoured question will be amended to read as follows'- rrrtlVhat did Rdam Snith say in 1776.nr9 Adelaide, Heaton clairned, had again taken the lead. With the new Diploma, the alliance between labour and learning, that was so nuch talked about, had taken on a new dinension. Drafted by the W.E.A. executive and approved by the rutiversity, the Diploma would offer the

same economics and economic history as in the B.A. and, for advanced

economics, a lengthy research essay would be subnitted on a topic such as trade union organisation or land taxation or perhaps some aspect of state enterprise. Political science and constitutional history would

examine modern forms of government and their r.mderlying political

l9H. Heaton, "Training Tutors and Politicians'r, Austz'aLian Híghnsay' Vol. 1, no. 11, January 1920, P. 8. 263. philosophy. In all, the work required would amount to about half that required for the B.A. The total fee for the Diploma v/as ítZ anð. so the

W.E.A. intended to offer - "pending the arrival of a free universitytr - three scholarships for the adult graduates of its tutorial classes who would be drawn from all walks of 1ife.20

Concerned as he was to strengthen the content of his teaching, Heaton was also extremely interested in experinenting with pedagogical nethod. In an article in the Eeonomic Jotu'naL in 1924, entitle¿ ttfur Experiment in the Teaching of Economics and Kindred Subjectsrr, he out- lined a yeart s teaching in economic history for his B.A. students, which demonstrated his faniliarity with. "progressive" educational theory and with attempts like the Dalton plan to apply it. He argued that the standard teaching device of the lecture, had serious defects - the ex cathedra teacher, the passive, scribbling student and the lack of persona,l contact. With his class of thirty-five students, Heaton, and his assistant A.L,G. Mackayrtried an extraordinarily progressive approach: the sixty-lecture course was abandoned in favour of assígnnent work with topics, selected bibliographies and essay subjects. A short introductory lecture was given but then the students dispersed to work by themselves for two weeks, sunmarising all the books readrand writing the essay which was then read to a small group controlled by an elected chairnan. The group discussed and questioned until finally the essay was graded by secret bal1ot from each menber of the group. If there were any serious differencesbetween the vote of the students and that of the lecturer, then the teacher's vote prevailed

zoft¿d. On Heatonf s departure, the Diploma was abolished by the Cotncil flom 1927. See Minutes of Joint Comnittee for Tutorial Classes, 8 Decenber 1926. 264 but Heaton maintained that this had happened only once. The book summaries and the essays were given cáreful attention by the teacher.

Thus, Heaton explained, the student could work at his own pace, gain self-confidence and acquire a genuinely curious mind. The students were asked to evaluate the system themselves and they reported in its favour except for the heavy denands it made on them. They were exanined but were allowed the use of books in the examination and their assigned work conprised part of theiT final mark. The teachers believed this method nore rewarding although more exacting for them and they were prepared to say that student performance showed narked improvement.2I

While the teaching of econornics and the continued expansion of this area within the rmiversity was a source of pride and satisfaction to Heaton, the recognition of his subject, either in an Arts Honours Degree or in the upgrading of the Diploma of Commerce, was still denied. The campaign went fitfully on for the ni-ne years he, spent in Adelaide.

In 1919, six months after the Chamber of Comrnerce had advised against the first proposal, Heaton wrote again to the tmiversity. He called attention to the great increases in enrolrnents, now 140 - he was sure a handful of these were ready and able to proceed to a Degree. Pointing out that even a small commurity like Hobart had established a Faculty

of Commerce with provision for post-graduate work, he maintained that Adelaide was slipping back. He expected that Brisbane and Melbourne would soon join Sydney and Hobart in recognising the importance of economics. The experience of the War, he reminded the university, had

popularised the view that economic progress "does depend to a large

2lH. Heaton, "An Experiment in the Teaching of Economics and Kindred Subjects", Economic JoumaL, Vol . 34, 1924, pp. 219-226. 265 extent on greater efficiency and better technical and commercial training".22 In 1920,.this view briefly persuaded the Chanber of

Commerce for there r^ras a move to press the ùniversity in approaching the governnent for the money to finance a Commerce Faculty but the initiative was soon lost in the r.rniversityrs more comprehensive developnent schemes. 2 3

It was not wrtil 1922 lhat the question was re-opened and a second committee set up to draft another proposal for a Degree which would en- body the best features of Sydney, London and Birninghan. This time the conmittee was to consider whether the duties of the potential professor should still include those of Director of Tutorial Classes.24 A year later, 1923, Heaton was planning to go home to England and, applying for his 1eave, he noted that nothing further had been done towards establish- ing the Degree.25 The Board of Conmercial Studíes then re-convened

its committee and decided to Teconmend the Degree to the Council a

second time. Since Heaton was going abroad, the Board suggested fornally that he rnight investigate commerce programs in England, Europe and America in the interests of planning Adelaide's prospective Degree.26

Heaton was by now becoming increasingly disturbed about his own status and salary. Asking Darnley Naylor, as chair'rnan of the Joint Conmittee, to support a review of both, he again cited his increased work load in the university and the W.E.A., his growing enrolments, and

Z2\eaton to Assi.stant-RegistTar, 16 June 1919. Minutes of Board of Connercial Studies. 23Heaton to J. Fowler, Chairman, Board of Commercial Studies, 11 November 1922. University of Adelaide Docket No. 640, 1922. 24Board of Connercial Studies Minutes, 18 JuIy L922; 19 Septembet 1922. zslb¿d., 19 June 1923. zøft¿d., 17 Jltry 1923. 266 the incrcased sophistjcation of his teaching and of the work he had sponsored in economics. He considered his work comparable to that of

Irvine in Sydney and Copland in Tasnania while he carried more teaching for the W.E.A. than his fellow-Directors, Portus, Atkinson, Copland and Molesworth. His standing as a scholar was, he submitted, as good as that of any other economist in Australia:

I think it is true that I am the only economist who has a reputation outside Australasia and a recent article in the Economic JournaL brought me an invitation from Professor Taussig to write for the (Harvard) Quarl;erly Jourrnl of Economics. Yet my status is lower than that of the Director of Tutorial Classes in Melbourne and Hobart, both of whom have been given the rank of professor. IUy salary is lower than that of any other Director except in 2 7 Brisbane .

1922 had been a big year with 250 students enrolled in the university courses and 650 in the tutorial classes" As well as a heavy university lecturing schedule, Heaton took W.E.A. classes in the city and at Port

Adelaide. He also travelled thousands of niles aror.nd Australia each year in the course of his W.E.A. duties.

In 1924, Heaton returned to England for a year. He had been invited by Willian Beveridge and Lillian Knowles to give a short course of lectures at the London School of Economics on current Australian economic conditions.2B His syllabus covered environmental factors, problens in land settlernent and tenure, industry, cornmerce and finance, comrnercial policy, problems of state enterprise, the regulation of industrial conditions and "some unresolved problemsr' (closer settlenent, White Australia, industrial unrest, the jurisdiction of industrial courts,

2Tïeaton to H. Darnley Naylor, Chairman of the Joint Committee, Boarcl of Commercial Studies, 23 lvlarch 1922. Heaton Papers. 2BW. Beveridge to Heaton, 13 March L923. Heaton Papers. 267. the tropical north) .29 Thanking Beveridge for the invitation to lecture, he added the conplaint that was beginning to becorne a refrain:

May I correct one little error I have not a Chair here; there is no Chair in Economics at Adelaide although our flock of nearly 300 Econonics and Commerce students makes our departnent probably the biggest of its kind south of the Equator. I am in charge of this flock but have only the status of a Lecturer. 3o

Heaton gave his lectures on Australia at Leeds tlniversity and also at

Canbridge. Then, during the year, he was invited unexpectedly to Queenrs University in Kingston, Ontario, to assist in the Department of Political Science for four months.3l As well as supplementing his incone (his two replacements in Adelaide were being paid out of his salary) he was able to strengthen his intellectual contact in Canada with the academics who were already his correspondents. He lectured on Australia in Toronto where a fel1ow Englishman, C.R. Fay, was professor of economiós.

After his return to Australia, Heaton duly reported to the Board of Conrnercial Studies on the courses he had observed in Britain and Canada, recommending that general courses weÌe needed for Australian universities at the present tine, rather than the more highly specj-alised ones of British and North American universities.32 While he was àway' the Board had sought all the particulars relating to the new chair of colnmerce at Melbourne33 and, by the time Heaton submitted his report, it had in hand a letter from Melbouïne attesting to the initial success of its new Degree course.34 The Adelaide Board now expressed itself

29Heaton's syllabus for lectures at L.S.E. 1924. Heaton Papers. 30Heaton to Beveridge, 28 April 1923. 3lBruce Taylor, Principal Queents Co1lege, Ontario, to Heaton, 14 August 1924. Fleaton Papers. 32Board of Cornrnercial Studies Minutes, 12 l4ay, 1925. 33rbid., 3 March 1924. 3',rb¿d., L2 lvlay 1925. 268. in May 1925, strongly in favour of the rrearly establishment" of a Degree in Commerce. Yet another comrnittee, consisting of Heaton,

William Mitchel1, Mr Bruce, President of the Chanber of Conmerce, and Mr Perry, President of the Chanber of Manufacturers, was convened to consider the curriculum and the staff requirements.35

Sefore the Boardr s determinationr to press for a Degree could be discussed at that nonthrs Council meeting, however, Heaton received a cable from Queenrs University offering him the MacDonald chair of economics and political science, to replace immediately Dr O. Skelton who was resigning to take a position in the Dominion government. The cable precipitated a crisis in the relationship of Heaton to the Board and to the uníversity. The day before the Council was due to neet, Heaton inforned Mitchell of the Canadian offer and asked for a clarif- ication of his prospects at Adelaide:

Inportant as the Chair is, I like my work in Adelaide too much to wish to leave it, especially if there r^Ias any prospect that the Econornics and Commerce work would in the near future be placed on the same level as it is in Melbourne and Sydney, and that I night be placed in charge of that development.36 IIe went on to record the devclopments he had achieved in the last nine years: in Arts there were 90 students taking his subjects and the

Faculty of Arts had now resolved for the early institution of an Honours

School of economics; in commerce the numbers had grown from B0 in 1918

to 500 in 1925 and econonics was nour one of the most popular subjects in the university. There were 22 tutorial classes in operation under his administration with fortnightly country classes and a student body

" '1þ1,d.. 36Heaton to Vice-Chancel1or, W Mitche11, 28 May 1925. University of Adelaide Docket no. IL7, 1925. Copy also in Heaton Papers. 269. of 1000. It r4ras time, he suggested, that the lll.E.A. work was separated from the duties of thç lecturer in economics. Then the letter asked its central question - vras there any likelihood that the Council would make provision for an Honours school in economics and a Degree course in comrnerce and, furthermore, ttif such a provision is to be made, whether I could expect an improvement in ny status thereby"?37

The Board of Commercial Studies held a special meeting at the Vice- Chancellorts request a few hours before the Council met, to ascertain if, in the event of a Degree being established, the Chair would be offered to Heaton. As lt{itchell pointed out, the two matters would be considered together at the Council. After a discussion, the Chairnan of the Board, Mr S.R. Booth, advised the Vice-Chancellor that the Board was divided on the issue and that of the four comrnercial representatives on the Board, three had stated that the Associations they represented were adverse to the chair being offered to Heaton.38 The Council also considered the matter at length and decided it was not in a position to establish a Degree course at present. Its reason was clearly stated: It has already affirmed the principle that neither an Honours School in Economics nor a Degree in Commerce should be established unless there is a Professor at the head of the school.39 While Heaton was at Adelaide there would be no such professor. This ultinate reason was not made explicit, but Heaton innediately recognised his position and sent off his acceptance to Canada at once.40 He left Australia at the end of August. *****

zz tbid. 3BBoard of Conmercial Studies Minutes, 29 May 1925. 3gRegistrar, University of Adelaide to Heaton, 2 June 1925. Heaton Papers. Also University of Adelaide Docket no. 1^I7, 1925. 40Heaton to Taylor, 29 May 1925. Heaton Papers. 270

The South AustnaLían llorker, official organ of the South Australian

Labour Party ancl Tradc LJnìons, pronounccd it succinct vcrdict on l{eatonrs departure: It is an open secïet that if Dr Heaton had been offered a professorship he would have remained in Adelaide, but it is also an open secret that if he had stayed here til1 Doonsday hã would never have been offered a chair.4l There is reason to question the hlorkert s opinion that a chair would have kept Heaton in Adelaide but the second point was a pithy statement of the essential situation. Heaton had diagnosed it himself along the same lines as early as 1919 when he rernarked to his old Leeds professor, A.J. Grant, "I doubt if we sha11 ever get a Faculty of Conmerce here so Iong as youl quandan pupil remains the teacher of Econonics."42 During his whole careeï in Adelaide, Heatonrs analysis of why this should be so never varied and he never ceased to underline ruefully the ironies and paradoxes of his own position. To the capitalists and conservatives he was a dangerous Bolshevik who preached subversive doctrine under the guise of economics; to the left-wing of the Labour movement and to the radical socialists he was a "we11-sharpened tool of the Capitalist classrr. In Adelaide, those on the left had little influence over his institutional career but the university was not so insulated from his other critics and was keenly sensitive to its menbers engaging in activities which might be interpreted as rrcontloversial'r. Having looked at Heatonrs efforts within the university to secure the study of economics, one needs therefore, in understanding its rejection of hirn, to examine his role outside the university and to appreciate his interaction with the public and the community.

arsouth Austv'aLian Worker', 26 June 1925. 42Heaton to Grant, 26 lftay 1919. Heaton Papers. 27r.

Heaton arrived in Adelaide early in t917 at a time when Australian politics were at their most rabid. In the sane week that he gave his first tutorial classes, Frank Tudor opened his campaign for the Labour patty for the general election of May 1917 which followed the Labour Party split and was held between the two Conscription Referenda.43 Although he was known as an anti-conscriptionist, Heaton did not involve himself publicly in the heated issue. Later in the yeaT' he did oppose a notion of the council of the Chamber of Conrnercq' on which he sat as the university's representative,4q urging its members to vote

Yes. On other crucial issues of the day, however, Heaton continued to seek the role he found so distressingly wanting in Australia - that of the intellectual who enlightened the public, who challenged official policy and who stirred debate on vital questions. The pages of the dailies were filled with news of the War, the Peace, Bolshevisn and the League of Nations. These issues frequently occasioned strong editorials, if not actual discussion, but what disturbed Heaton on all these matters was the lack of informed public debate and the partial material on which he felt the newspapel reporting was based.

The isolation of Australia and the dependence on daily cables fron

what Heaton deerned the conservative press in Britain meant both that Australia took little interest in what was beyond her own territorial waters and that, apa'rt fron those who favoured inperial federation, there was litt1e attempt to formulate policies of her own or to understand complex international problems. Heaton did not allude to the constitutional difficulty of responsibility for Australia's official

a3oaiLy HeraLd, 24 lvlarch L9I7. 44Minutes of the University of Adelaide Council, 29 June 1917. )1) foreign policy within the Empire. His criticisms were directed more to the public apathy which he lanented and to the absence of any ginger- groups or rrbrainstrustsil which could advise and shape the platform of politicians. It was time, he totd the annual Labour Conference of South Australia that the Labour Party gave more attention to internat- ional issues and followed the example of the British Labour Party whose policy he thought rrwas wise and states¡nanlike, and contained or corrunanded the best brains in Europer'. Labour, not being in office during the iital days of the Peace, had not faced many issues and Heaton believed that both Labour and the Federal Governnent should have a group or a committee which would specialise on Australian attitudes to international affairs.45 No doubt such a role would have greatly interested Heaton hinself but the only vehicles for the expression of his opinion remained his public lectures, occasional articles and letters to friends abroad. To Grant, he expounded his views on the poverty of public opinion on international natters:

Hence we never had, during the whole of the war, an official statement of what Australia was fighting for; we never had, apart from many W.E.A. lectures, ãnY carnpaign in favour of a League of Nations; our Labour Patty says nothing concerning allied policy in Russia; and the promises of the Peace Treaty have left us cold .. .

Heaton was strongly critical of Hughes and of his claim to speak for

Australia in demanding the German colonies, precisely because it was so difficult to know what Australians thought; he told Grant,

We simply have, as a nation, no opinions or policy on any of these matters this doninion at any rate has no opinions worth consulting, and so we find ourselves conmitted to lines of policy by Australian statesmen who go Home and are skilfully doped by the Tory London press.46

45The DaiLy HenaLd, 14 Septerbet L923. Report of lecture on rrEducation and Internationalisn" . 46Heaton to Grant , 26 May I9L9, op. cit, 273.

A letter in 1920 to Alfred Zinnern reiterated the sane points. lt'lost decent people, Heaton was sure, were ashaned of Hughes at the Peace

Conference but since Australia was so reliant upon a biased cable service there was little conception of the intricacies of international problens, apaït fron the opinions oftrsay, Milner, Curzon and Conpany snipped from the Time,s, The DaíLy MaíL, The Moming Post et aL.I' The Labour and Liberal parties of Britain, he told Zimmern, could well advance their cause and their image in the colonies by subsidising more cables giving prorninence to their aims. This might noderate the current conservative projection of them in Australia as tools of Lenin.47

His own estinate of Australiars interest in the terms of the

Peace hras opposed to the Hughes' orthodoxy that Australia must annex the Gernan colonies in the Pacific. It is significant that his trenchant criticisms appeared under a pseudonym, I'Anglo-Australianrt, in the British liberal papel the Athenaeum, a few months before the actual end of the War, and a year before the issue was discussed at Versailles.48 Apart from a few lone voices in the Labour Party, Heaton naintained, anti-annexationists were not vocal and views which might be safely expressed under a pseudonym would not be tolerated on any Australian platforn. Indee

4THeaton to Alfred Zimrnern, 13 June 1920, Zinrnern Letter, MS 3731' National Library of Australia. 4BSee L.F. Fitzhardinge,'rW.M. Hughes and the Treaty of Versaillesrf JourmaL of Cornmom,teaLth PoLiticaL Studies, Vol. V, July 1967, pp. 130-142. 274 . and Papua are a big enough tropical burden on our shouldersr'. Australia did not have the capacity to handle German New Guinea, even to satisfy

Imperialists and rrTory scribesr'. Another argument for annexation r¡Ias the fear of Gerrnany re-establishing strongholds at Australiars door.

This, Heaton believed, was not likely to be justified tmless Gernany could fortify her colonies with enough strength to defy the combined power of Australasia and the British fleet. To the Daily MaiL's appeal to Australians to save the poor natives from the rrbloody and brutal rulerr of the Hun he responded sardonically that the Australian did know something of the treatment of native races by the white nan. One of the strong reasons against annexation was the danger that Australians might develop an Anglo-Indian nind and cast arrslave-masterrs eye on the negror'. Heaton also wondered if there might not be some Australians who would prefer to have a 'rdenocratized'r Germany in control of the islands in the Pacific than some of those agents of the'rYellow Peril'r. Australians, he thought, even nourished a silent adniration for the way German migrants had hewn flourishing conmunities out of the bush in South Australia. Above all, he concluded, Australia could not talk of a new world and a new order after the War and at the sane time denand that the spoils go to the victorrrin the most approved ancient t"ru"t"trr.49 Privately, to Zimmern, Heaton was more forthright. Australia, he wrote, did not have a pretty record with the aboriginals, did not know how to develop the tropics, had neither the money nor the experience to deal with a native colony and, in his opinion, her administration of one would probably become in the end the sport of party politics. If the

49H. Heaton, trAustralia and the Gernan Coloniesil in Athenøeum., August 1918, pp. 340-342. Heaton identifies this article written t¡nder pseudo- nym "Anglo-Australiantt in letter to Zinrnern, op. eit. 275.

League were to insist on Teports from nandatory powers, Australia might soon find its knuckles rappecl.5o

It is as well that Heaton chose anonymity in the expression of his criticisms of Australian policy in the Pacific. The community at large would not have shared his optimism about the future denocratis- ation of Gerrnany. Popular and official sentiment favoured retribution exacted from Germany rather than a tolerance for things German - even those residents of flourishing Gernany commrmities and the descendants of those respected Germany pioneers had been busy changing their own names and the names of their towns.5l Furtherrnore, Heatonrs article denonstrated an unacceptable scepticisn about another contenporary Australian orthodoxy - the belief that Australia had an unlinited capacity to expand and to support people and civilisation right across the continent.

Consistent with his own views about the War and with his concern for public ahrareness of international issues, Heaton was an early member of, and propagandist for, the newly-formed League of Nations

Society in Adelaide. The parent body had been set up in London by

G. Lowes Dickinson and its principal rnenbers came from the Union of

Democratic Control; Leonard Woolf, J. Hobson, Arthur Ponsonby,

Graham Wal1as, Bernard Shaw and Bertrand Russell were anong those who worked out schemes for a League of Nations in Britain during the War.

In Adelaide, Heatonrs friend, Darnley Naylor, joined several clergyrnen in fornding and pronoting the International Peace and League of Nations Society. In June 1918, the Society wrote to the University Council asking

5oHeaton to Zimrnern, op. cLt. 5lEarly in the War, thè secretary of the South Australian W.E.A., Victor E. Kroener, changed his name to Cromer. 276. perrnission for the use of the Prince of Wales Theatre for a lecture on the League of Nations Society to be given by Heaton. The Societyrs secretary, Mr P.H. Nicholls, assured the University that there would be no reference to the 'rpresent conflict for Righttr except for a consideration of such economic forces as tended to create international jealousy. There would be sorne explanation of extracts from the speeches of president Woodrow Wilson, Mr Lloyd George and others conceming their ideas on a League of Nations.52 An accornpanying pamphlet infonned the Council of the ains of the Society as outlined in London: I'its purpose is to pTepale public opinion for a radical change in international relations'r which had been foreshadowed in the speeches of Wilson, Sir

Edward Grey and Mr Balfour. The Vice-Chancel1or, Williarn Mitchell, was in favour of allowing the use of the theatre and told the Council that rrto the lecture would be purely educational and would not refer how the

War began or when it will endr? but the Council voted against it, quoting its policy that during the War representatives of outside bodies were not pernitted to speak in the university on subjects pertaining to the

War and the Peace.5 3 When the Society approached the Board of the Public Library for the use of a Toom' the secretary of the Board required an undertaking that the lecturer ?'wil1 not touch upon the question of peace, and its relations to the present conflictrr. Heaton replied again that he would refer only to economic forces which created conflict and to the ideas of lrlilson and others on a League: 'rThe nere fact that I shal1 heartily conmend the utterances of these nen ougþt to satisfy the requirements of the Public Library Governors". The Board

52p.H. Nichollsto RegistTar, 1 July 1918 and 21 June 1918. University of Adelaide Docket no. 278, 1918. S3Minutes of University of Adelaide Cor.rrcil, 28 June 1918. 277 . was not satisfied and voted not to allow the use of its roolns to the Society, leading P.H. Nicholls to ask in an open letter to the news- papers why all doors must be closed against it. All the best thought in England and America was to his knowledge trnaninously in favour of a rHushrrr.54 League but, in Adelaide, rrthe Public Library Board says

Not long after, four public lectures entitled rtA League of Nations" did finally find a platform and publication under the auspices of the Adelaide Diocesan Social Llnion, an Anglican group affiliated with the W.E.A. and about to join the recently formed Australian Christian Social Union. In August 1918, it sponsored the lectures by Heaton, Meredith Atkinson and the President of the South Australian Industrial Court, W. Jethro Brown. Giving the first two lectures, Heaton concentîated on the need for a League drawing substantially on the Bri-tish literature - H.N. Brailsfordrs League of Nations and tlar of steeL and GoLd, G. Lowes Dickinson's The choiee Before us,

L.T. Hobhouser s Questions of the tiaz, úLd Peace and J.A. Hobsonrs Touards InternatíonaL Gouernnpnt. As usual, he followed the dissenting liberal line on the War: the roots of the conflict were to be traced to the nachinations of secret diplomacy, to an armed peace and the balance of power, and to the consequent suspicion and il1-will among nations. It was essential to curb militarisn and to ensure a Peace based on I'the rule of public right" which would be enforced by'rthe public will". By 1916, he declared, it had become clear that the ltlar which sone had entered idealistically had degenerated into a nercenary struggle for territory and trade. The entry of the United States, and the Russian Revolution, rtcane as a spring-cleaningr': the Anericans

5+p.H. Nicholls to Press, University of Adelaide Docket no. 278,1918. 278. hacl forcecl a healthy articulation of War aims on the part of the Allies

and the Russians had I'sent a wave of hope over every landrr' A revolution in the international ordeÌ was the only way to avoid the repetition of another war. Perhaps the horror of wars in their nodern form had proved a potent deterrent in denonstrating how neither victor nor

vanquished could win in the enormous toll that was taken on both sides'

He hoped that the League would be able to attend to some of the funda- nental causes of war, such as the frustrations of oppressed nationality and the conspiracies of interest which allied the forces of capital, the press, the armanent firms and foreign investment. Since Heaton spoke three months before the Armistice, when few people expected an early conclusion to the hrar, he could still describe two sections of the public in belligerent countries as the rrbloodthirsty and bitter-

endersrr to whom the War had become an end in itself, and those who saw

the War as leading to t'the destruction of a systen which made wars possibler'. His final plea was for the world to think internationally:

,runless u/e can accomplish it, the War will have been fought in vain't'55

In 1919, as the possibili-ty of the League took shape, Heaton

emphasised the need for the Australian people to become conscious of the problems and of the questions involved in having replesentation on it. He pointed again to the lack of an Australian foreign policy and to the necessity for public education, beginning in the school-room, in the history and affairs of other countries. Until 1914, he noted, no Australian university gave instruction in modern world history and

he now urged some study of Japan and china to supplement the attention

55H. Heaton, Jethro Brown, M. Atkinson, A League of Nations, (Adelaide, August 1918). 279 given to the traditional British Imperial history. In this way, he wrote, ttthe road may be opened up for the forrnulation of inforned and broad policies by the political parties". Reiterating his criticisn of Australian dependence on the view fro¡n Printing House Square and Park Lane, he suggested that the business of choosing news for Australia should be in the hands of a corunittee representing various sections and parties in Australia and that the Australian newspapers train their staff in modern political and econornic developments. For the nornent, however, he conclucled, a1l Australia could offer the League was a purely negative policy on the colour question: This allegedly advanced dernocracy of ours has- sent out no word of hop" of a better world, has barked at the heels of thosè who visualise a new and better inter- national order, and has subscribed to doctrines worthy of a Machiavelli and a Metternich.56

Heaton continued to campaign vigorously for the League in the early twenties, defending it from attacks in the press and giving public lectures on the relevant parts of the Treaty. He was particularly interested in the work of the League's International Labour Office in

Geneva and reports of his efforts to educate the Australian public

reached H.B. Butler at the I.L.O. who wrote to hin with inte1'est¡

Heaton hastened to consolidate this contact, givlng an account of his lectures and his attenpts to popularise its work. Heaton asked for

as rnuch of its material as the I.L.O. could send for he intended to

nake hinself an authority in Australia on its activities.5T Butler replied appreciatively and took up Heatonrs offer to act as honorary

56H. rrAustralia and the League of Nations't, AußtraLian HighUay, Heaton, rrThe vol. l, no. 3, lhay 1919. Also Heaton lecture on Problens of the Peacef' , Aduertiser, 2 APtil 1919. STHeaton to H.B. Butler, 5 December L922. Heaton Papers. 280. correspondent for the I.L.O. in Australia.58 When he returned to England for a yearrs leave in 1924, Heatonrs dedication to the peace novement nade him the choice for Director of Adjudication of essays subnitted in

Britain for the European Peace Awards on the subject of international co-operation. He sat on the executive committee of the British Peace

Award with congenial colleagues in Albert Nlansbridge, Willian Beveridge and Gilbert Murray.59

As the War came to an end, patriotic sentiment and nervousness about the Pacific encouraged the prevailing belief in Australia that Germany must pay, although, as the Adelaide Aduertiser expressed it, no amount of punishment and humiliation could be in proportion to

Gernan gui1t.60 Not surprisingly, Heatonrs views on the Peace aroused and confirmed suspicion of hin in many quarters, especially after a public lecture he gave in N{arch ,1920 explaining J.M. Keynest controversial book, The Economic ConseqL@nces of the Peace. Keynes himself had been a member of the British Peace Delegation and had resigned in protest against the severity of the punitive economic clauses in the Peace Settlement. Before a large audience, Heaton outlined Keynesr criticisms and referred to the growing discontent abroad with the terms of the

Treaty. Keynes argued that continental Europe was essentially one econornic unit and that therefore any settlenent which aimed at crushing one nember of that r:nit, Germany, would have disastrous consequences even for the victors. Heaton agreed with Keynes that this was a

Carthaginian peace designed nainly to prevent Germanyrs recovery. He

5BH.B. But1er to Heaton, 18 February 1923. Heaton Papers. 5gHeaton, Curriculum vitae submitted for chair of conmerce, University of Melbourne, 1924, op. cLt. Also ga1ley proof of newspaper article signed Il.S.T. on Heatonrs departure, reviewing his career. n.d. Heaton Papers 60Aduertísez,, 5 May 1919. Editorial. 281. spellcd out the

Correspondence on the lecture in the press accused Heaton of being "distinctly pro-Germanr'. One writer to the editor would have respected Heaton more, he said, if he had taught Australian workers that their craze for short hours, high pay and snall production did deep injury to their country. Another saw the lecture as a diatribe against the

Peace and a rrspecial plea for the aggressors in the most brutal war recorded in historyrr. Heaton would not be wasting such naudlin sentinent on the Gernans, this writer was confident, if he had himself contributed'rin blood and treasureil to the suppression of their monstrous aggression.62 Heaton could only reply that Keynesr views, reached the previous June, were gaining acceptance by nany people and he repeated that the dernands of the Treaty were impossible. If he were, hrith

Keynes, thought to be rrpro-Germant' then he considered himself in good company.63 There were not, however, too many fellows of this '?good companyrr to be found in Adelaide.

In the eyes of his critics, Heaton had now shown hinself in favour of Gerrnany just as a year earlier they believed he had revealed his synpathy with the Bolsheviks. His renarks on Bolshevism haunted his reputation and again illustrated the perils of expounding even a

6rRegister,, 12 March lg2\. Report of lecture on |tThe Economic Conse- quences of the Peace". 62Registen, 16 March Ig2O. brRegister, 17 lvlarch 1920. 282. left liberal critique of world issues in a society unfaniliar with the subleties and nuances of public debate.64 In March 1919, when Heaton gave this lecture at Port Adelaide, the papers were carrying daily reports of the latest Bolshevik terror. Horrifying reports of so-called witnesses and tourists in Russia told of plots and outrages, of the nationalisation of wonen, of the state of beggary to which industry had been reduced. As in the case of the Gernan invasion of Belgiun, Heaton took a cautious line on these atrocity reports. He began his Iecture rather academically, explaining the theories underlying Bolshevism, frorn lvlarx to the French Syndicalists. In a brief history of events, he described the plight of the Russian peasant and the discontent of the Russian wage-earner eiploited by both landlords and capitalists, showing how their alliance in revolution had resulted in the transition of power to the middle-class provisional governnent which was then overthrown by the Bolsheviks. He outlined the function of the soviets, pointing out the limitations on the franchise. Land confiscation and the transfer of industrial control to inexpert workers were admitted problems, and he acknowledged the intervention of Bolshevik propaganda in other countries. In all, Heaton concluded that the system in Russia was probably working in sone sort of way "otherwise it would have been overthrown long agot'.65

6\Aduertiser, 10 August 1925. At Heatonrs farewell gathering 8 August 1925 A.G. Roberts referred to the antagonism stirred by the lecture. E.G. Biaggini in his memoir Iou Can't Sa:A That! (Adelaide 1970) refers inaccurately to the lecture: rrHeaton actually dared to give some sort of public lecture on Bolshevism when he was quarantined with others at the time of the Spanish influenøa epidemic; and thus to our (the W.E.A.) eternal disgrace, he became a marked man". What Heaton did when quarantined at the Jubilee Oval with a trainload of people returning from the Eastern states was to organise,the enter- tainment and nake the eventrra great social successrt, see Aduettiser' 6 March 1919. The lecture on Bolshevism was given two weeks later. 65Aduertisen, 2l March 1919. 283.

It took a few weeks for reaction to this lectUre to filter into the press and, in the rneantime, Heaton had lectured on?rThe Problems of the Peace". The angry coïrespondent to tlre AdUertiser drew on reports of his lectures from trtrustworthy friends" which further fanned the flanes of suspicion about Heaton. The lecture was judged an attempt ?rto palliate the awful outrages committed by the fiends who for sone two years have terrorised the Russian peoplerr - in general, it was the kind of approach one might expect of rranti-conscriptionists".66 Heaton protested that he did not approve of outrages, but he insisted that there was nuch contradictory reporting in the cables concerning Russia which should nake the public wary of accepting all the staternents about atrocities. Many alleged documents relating to the Bolsheviks, Heaton maintained, had proven false - the clains about the nationalisation of

wonen were an example. It was more inportant, he went on, to try to develop the critical faculties of the public so that they could discriminate more readily between fact and legend. Challenged about the sources of his own opinions, he named the journals and papers which he received fron England regularly and which supplenented his reading of the Aduey,tiser. He drew much of his information fron the Nation, which he described as a liberal English weekly consistently critical

of Bolshevism as a theory of industry or politics and from the 1ll¿z,l Statesman, which often showed hostility to Russian ideas even anong Radical British Labour elements. He also read the American journals,

the Neu RepubLic and the Nation, which, he said, often preached that

Bolshevisn hras a menace that could only be overcome by the rernoval of

66Aduertisen, 21 June 1919. 284. social evils, like starvation, in Europe. He referred also to an

English Clrurch of England weekly, the C*taLLenge, and to the Canbz"Ldge Xh.gazine, again liberal papers which were critical of Bolshevist extremism. The latter periodical was a prominent organ of dissent which had been taken over by the U.D.C. group at Canbridge. Heaton insisted on a distinction between the ideals of revolution and the excesses of revolutionary practi ce :

We shall not stem back the advance of the Bolshevik ideal by howling about outrages and atrocities. If we regard Bolshevism as a bad social theory, we nust fight it as a theory, and not on the ground of the violent conduct of those who first attempt to put it into practice.6 7

Such fine and acadenic distinctions did not console or inpress the rnasters of industry in Adelaide, faced as they were increasingly after the War with industrial unrest which seemed to them to ripple out from the tidal wave of Bolshevism. At the end of 1922, the retiring President of the Chanber of Manufacturers, Mr J.W. McGregor, spoke out in public attack on Heaton. At the Chamberrs annual meeting,two weeks before he addressed hinself to Heaton, he took as his theme the trnsettled industrial conditions and, in particular, spoke in support of the projected South Australian Industrial Disputes Bill as a r'less complicated way of settling industrial disputes'r than the arbitration systen. Disputes, he said, needed to be settled in a way that would give nanufacturers I'some sense of securitytt and he hoped that the new legislation would reduce the power of agitators.6B Speaking again at the annual banquet of the Chamber, he reviewed its activities for the

67 Adtsez,tiser', 23 June 1919. 6SAduertiser,, 16 Novernber 1922. 285 year and alluded to its rmiversity connection in the Diploma of Comnerce:

The University, in its teaching of Econonics, had, in the opinion of Manufacturers, becone, to a large extent, engaged in propaganda work and had been used as a lever by people holding socialist views.69 Sirnilar teachings, he warned, had led Russia into her present condition and would eventually place any other country in the same plight.

Heaton attempted some personal discussion with McGregor asking

for the chance to reply to his accusations before the Chamber. His neetings with McGregor were inconclusive so that he then appealed to the Council of the university for leave to reply publicly in the press.70

A long letter, which appeared on New Year's Day 1923, might have served

as his apologia even after he left Adelaide in 1925. He denied that he would ever abuse his university trust or violate the traditions of scholarship by engaging in propaganda - he believed that he dealt with economic problens in a "detached, impartial mannerrr. Indeed, his inpartiality seemed to find proof in the fact that in the last six years the representatives of capital and labour had each accused hin of being a tool of the other side. Heaton decided that McGregor had based his attack on the fact that those attending his lectures held extreme views and took what they wanted from the lecture to use in their

own contexts. This did not make the lecturer partial, Heaton pointed out: all the Marxians, single-taxers, currency cranks, protectionists

and freetraders hoped that he would support their beliefs. These were

men who came rrto lecture, not to learn" but the vast najority of his

students were those who wanted to think and learn: rrI teach and learn

from then who come from all walks of life". He maintained that the

69Aduertiser, 28 Novemb er 1922, ToMinutes of the University of Adelaide Council, 15 Decembet L922. 286. university must be open to the free discussion of ideas and that the teaching of economics was particularly vital to Australians since so nany of her econonic troubles could be traced to ignorance:

We have left our people to shape their opinions on wealth production and distribution in accordance with their own vested interests or r¡nder the guidance of the propagandist and partisan. fn Australia, issues were determined, in his view, through class experience and he believed that it was the urgent duty of the teacher of economics to broaden the class concept of the econornic structure, to weigh opposing views, to examine and criticise new ideas, and to show that there were two sides to every question. rrln a country where nost political questions are econonic in character", he argued finally, 'rthe widest possible teaching of econonics is as inportant as it is delicate, as urgent as it has been neglected.ttTl

There had already been nany other occasions on which Heatonrs public remarks alienated the chief patrons of his university work, the business comnunity of Adelaide. He had been in Adelaide only a nonth when a letter fron him appeared in the press reproving the Chanber of

Comnerce for its misapprehensions about the ains of the W.E.A. It was not correct, he told the Chanber, to look on hinself or the W.E.A. as an agency for promoting friendly relations between capital and labour - only enployers and employees could do that. But, he suggested jovially, he would be happy to run classes jointly for representatives of the Chamber and the Trades and Labour Council to help them shed their prejudices. The W.E.A., he insisted, does not exist for any political or econornic propag- andist purpose, neíther to preach harncny between

TlAduer.tísez,, 1 January 1923. '287 .

capital and labour on the one hand or socialisn on the other. It is purely an educational body' non- partisan and non-sectarian In his capaci-ty as a student and teacher of industrial organisation and practice, Heaton was, moreover, often critical of the attitudes of commercial men and of their business nethods. He spoke of the need to improve the quality of Australian goods for export and ovelseas competition, of the necessity for an increase in rrthat much-abused term, efficiencyttin order to improve nuch that was I'wasteful, out of date and conservative in Australiats equipment and methods".73 He told a meeting of his Diploma of Conmerce students that few enployers had made any attempt to understand the labour problem and to see why labour should be angry and restless. It was hostile, he informed them, because it had to fight hard for every advantage and was the first to suffer but the last to gain. The role of the commercial man as he saw it required more than mere training in comrnercial principles. It was a serious one, denanding education and judgement, a wide sympathy and a vigorous imagination. Commercial men, he believed, should see then- selves as bearing the responsibilities of trustees of society.T4 Addressing himself to the more general topic of education he rejected the idea of education as a means of social control intended to produce either a race of quiet, well-disciplined citizens at the beck and call of governments in peace and war, or a body of skilled labour for

commercial men to employ. A more human ideal looked upon the child both as a future citizen and a possible worker but it first of all

T2oaiLg HeraLd, 18 April 1917. 73Aduez,tiser,, 14 March 1919. Report of lecture on rrsome Essentials in Cornmercial Progressrt . z'rtb¿d. 2 88.

shaped his education to his requirements as an individual.75 When he tackled the problem of rrClass Consciousness and Social Progressn before the sunday evening congregation of the Angtican cathedrar, he nade it clear that, despite sone reservations, he felt that Marxrs view of history came near the truth in emphasising the extent to which social

unrest in every age had its origin in the clash of hostile econonic

interests. class-consciousness was, at root, group selfishness and a

degradation of both labour and professionalism. Ought we not to conderrr

the chairnan of a board of directors, he asked, who devoted the whole of hís speech at a shareholdersr meeting to congïatulating the share- holders on the record profits nade? Until the 'tsordid profit notiven was replaced by some I'ideal of industry as a public service, there would be no remedy to industrial unrest.76

There was at least one occasion on which Heaton, apart from expressing sentinents that might be construed as sympathetic to labour, appeared to some to be actively allied on the side of labour against the employer. rn 1920, the newly forned Bank officers

Association of South Australia approached him to accept nomination as vice-president, and to educate and advise then in their efforts to secure better wages and conditions. TT Heaton replied that he was wholeheartedly in favour of organisation amongst all menbers of trades and professions. He would give them a talk on rrOrganisation arnongst

Professional workersrr but he was reluctant to accept office in an association that I'at an early stage in its career will probably find it

TsAduet'tiser, 10 June 1919. Report of lecture on 'rEducational Refornn to annual meeting of the Adelaide Diocesan social union. Herald, la_natty/lT.J. I September t923. Linn, Savings Bank of S.4., to Heaton, 1g Jr.rne Ig2O, Heaton Papers. 289.

necessary to enbark on a vigorous campaign for an increase in salariesrr, a matter not pïoper for an outsider. He would reconsider if they could assure hin that his work would be rrpurely educational".78 When the

Bank officers agreed, Heaton was duly confirmed as vice-president at the first general neetingTg but within the year his involvement lttas drawn to the attention of the Cotncil of the university' Willian Mitchell called a meeting of professors and perrnanent lecturers to dis- cuss the principles raised by this case. The fear among the Cor¡ncil nembers, according to lv|itchell, was that since the Bank officers Association was a body conmitted to having its salaries determined by the Courts, the official participation of a menber of the university staff in such an association could implicate the university in'rpolitical propaganda'r. Mitchell feared that the issue could become rnore general and extend as far as the freedon to teach both within and outside the universitY: I am therefore calling a neeting " ' in the hope of gettingaunanimousresolutiononthenatterwhich would, I have no doubt, satisfy the council and plevent it from even appearing to interfere with ou1. fTeedon which of course it does not want to do ' Mitchell repeatedly supported Heaton but this was a sensitive and

complex issue. As he pointed out, the university now relied heavily

on parliamentary support and there were five new parliamentaly members on its council so that it was important that the university should be seen to be ,,free of po1itis5rr.B0 A few weeks later, Heaton offered his

TSHeaton to Linn, 21 June 1920. Heaton Papers' 79linn to Heaton, 14 July 1920. Heaton Papers' sOW. lrlitchell, open letter to r:niversity staff, 1 April 1921. Heaton Papers. 290. resignation as vice-president of the Association.Bl

As well as alienating J.W. McGregor, the President of the Chamber of Manufacturers, pastoralist, wool merchant and interstate manufacturer,

Heaton had made another implacable eneny in W. Herbert Phillipps of the Chanber of Commerce. Heaton named Phillipps as a particular opponent and he r^¡as no mean eneny.82 In 1925, when Heaton left

Australia, W. Herbert Phillips r^¡as seventy-eight years old and, according to Fred Johns in his early trlho's Who (19f4), Phillips was to be 'ridentified with the comnercial and financial life of Adelaide'r. A brief look at his long, influential and widely ramified career indicates how Heaton would have crossed his path at several points.

Phillipps was a founder of the commercial house of Geo. Wi1ls and Co. in 1881. He had been President of the Chamber of Commerce twice and was for thirteen years the President of the Federated Enployetsr

Council. As well as being a member of nany boards and charitable societies, he was also Chairrnan of the Trustees of the State Savings

Bank of South Australia, whose employees Heaton appeared to be helping

to unionise. He had been, since 1897, the Consul for Belgiun and was

much decorated by the Belgians for his services to their cause during the War - a cause which Heaton publicly clained had been exploited for the purposes of propaganda.S3 Another body of which Phillips was Vice-President was the Y.M.C.A., which, according to Heaton, had declined

to affiliate with the W.E.A. 'r1arge1y because Mr W. Herbert Phillipps

BIA. Johnston, Sec. of Bank Officials Association, to Heaton, 21 April t92t. BzAduertiser,, 1 January 1923. Also Curriculum vitae for chair of cornmerce, University of Melbourne 1924, op. eLt. B3Fred Johns, AustraLiats PromLnent PeopLe, 1914, and Whots llho ín AustraLia, L927-28. (Sydney) . 29r. declarecl thc W.ti.A. wiIS a dangerous political organi.sation in league with the Trades Hall, and I was known to be a Bolshevi¡.rr8h Phillipps had been the Chamber of Cornmercers representative on the uriversityrs Board of Connercial Studies since its inception in 1902 and he u,as cer- tainly one of the nost vocal voices against Heaton in 1925. It was the outside representatives who were opposed to Heatonts gaining arly future chair of conrnerce. Besides Phillips, these included the Mayor and president of the Chanber of Commerce, Mr Wallace Bruce, the President of the Chamber of Manufacturers, Mr Perry and the chairman of the Board, Mr S. Russell Booth, of Elder Trustee and Executors co. and a son-in-Iaw of one of Adelaiders most venerable figures, Sir Edward Stirling'

Another member of the Board was Colonel Price-Weir who served, along with Phillipps, as Plesident of the Y.M.C.A. Price-Weir, a soldier of distinguished war record, was also an organiser and founder of the South Australian branch of the Australian Imperial Association. I{rhile Naylor and Heaton were supporting internationalist causes in the League, Price-Weir and another member of the university, George C. Henderson, professor of nodern history and English language and literature, were appearing together on a platforn to inaugurate the Imperial Association

whose aims were to foster national unity, 'forganise patriotisntr, and strengthen Imperial ties. B5

professor George Henderson exemplified nuch of what Heaton found unsatisfactory in Australian universities. Heaton saw nany of the ne¡nbers of the University as "hard-shelled Tories" whose idea of a r.rriversity

S4Aduertiser', I January L923. BsAdueytiser,, 21 March and 26 March. See also M. Casson, G.C, Henderaon. A Memoiv' (Adelaide 1964). 292. datecl back to the Oxforcl and Cambridge of the 1880's.86 Ilendersonrs history teaching was a case in poínt: Ileaton described it to Grant,

I'listory is badly taught here, since one man has to do both History and Literature. He is an Australian who went to Oxford about twenty years ago, and brought back with him all the Oxford notions of teaching history of that day. Hence the History curriculum is not in the least adapted to the requirements of a University in this youlg country. B7 He criticj-sed the lack of teaching about Australia and about the growth of modern nations either in Europe or the Pacific. In 1919, Hendersonrs course stopped in 1273 and was nainly concerned with St. Francis of

Assisi and the First Three Crusades. The only other offering was a course in British imperial development and colonial policy and a course in British constitutional history. By 1923, the situation had improved with the addition of a study of Europe 1789-1914.88 In Heatonts view, the hand of nineteenth century Oxford hung heavy over Australian universities; many of the teachers who were trained there were not aware of changes even in Oxford and Cambridge, let alone interested in the r?new progressi,vert standards of the recently founded universities.

The practice of sencling Rhodes scholars to Oxford and the subsequent

enrploymcnt of them back in Australia Led to what Heaton thought was

'?in-breedingil but he hoped that the Oxbridge influence might gradually be diluted by ideas from places lilte Leecls, Bir:mingham and Manchester.89

0n the other hand, it is probable that Heaton hinself appeared to sorne of the conservative Oxbridge academics as a brash, radical product of those raw, provincial universities which popularised social science subjects that were neither traditional nor trustworthy.

B6Heaton to.LB. Condliffe, 21 September 1922. John Bel1 Conclliffe Papers, Bancroft Library, I-lniversity of Californi.a at Berkeley. BTHeaton to Grant, 26 May 1919. op. cít. BBSee University of Adelaide CaLendnv,s 1918-23 and University of Adelaide Eæamínation Papers 1918-25. B9Article by Heaton for Morley (Eng.) Secondary SchooI Magazine, 1919. Reprint in Heaton Papers. CHAPTER 10, Herbert Heoton: Economics ond Politics 293

l\Ihen Lleaton íeft Adclaide, thc South Austv.aLian L,brker saw his defeat as an attempt to suppress radicalism in the voice of a fearless man who had made the fruits of his research and his opinions known even when he was aware that they would not be popular with the ruling powers. trThese opinionsrt, said the official organ of Labour, ?rhave generally been of an advanced radical nature, for the doctor is a thorough dernocrat, though not.a Bolshevik in any sense of that mÍsused wortl".l Not being a Bolshevik prompted as many attacks from the left as Heaton underwent from the right. Darnley Naylor described Heaton's position to the Second Congress of the Universities of the Empire in

London in 192I as being between the rdevilr of the capitalist, who might be a "possible benefactor to the Universityil but who objected to trdangerous doctrinesr', and the tdeep blue seaf of the l4arxians especially at the Trades Hall.2 In the early days of the W.E.A. in

South Australia, when unions and organisations of various kincls were affiliating with the W.E.A., the South Australian Socialist Movement had declined on the grounds that such a linkage would not keep intact I'one of the most vital principles of their constitution, namely, class consciousness".3 The W.E.A. was frequently under attack for being no more than a glorified debating society which did not reach the true worker in any meaningful way. Mr Baker, of the A.W.U. asked a I9I7

Council neeting of the W.E.A.: 'rThe affiliation of the Society of Arts was all right, but what about the 4.W.U."4 The A.W.U., in fact, remained firnly opposed to Heaton who was, in their view, anti-Labour:

lsouth Australian hlorker,, 26 June 1925. 2H. Darnley Naylor, "The Universities and Adult Educationtt, Proeeed|ngs of the Second Congress of the llnioersities of the Enrpire (London L92I) , p. 145. 3naiLu Herald, 15 May I9I7. Lra,-LDLA. . t 294. their seóretary, MT. F.W. Lundie, conducted an inplacable carnpaign against hirn.

In 1917, the debate was with the proponents of the Labour Colleges which were modelled on the Central Labour College set up by the Plebs

League in London. The Victorian Labour College was founded by Maurice Blackburn, Frederic Sinclaire, Guido Baracchi and W.P. Earsman; in South Australia their spokesman was Mr tV. Martin Gorrnlie, a strong critic of Heatonrs conspiracy with the capitalists. At a series of addresses at the Collegers site, tlnity Hall in Bourke Street, the founders defined the aims of their College. It would be under the control of the affiliated unions and would follow the London example of teaching history, economics and literature but it would keep "working- class interests" in view. It was, they stressed' firmly opposed to the university influence on the working-classes and particularly to the W.E.A. whose influence on the worker wastrthat of a drug which will sap their brains and cause their teeth to fall outrr. They ridiculed was their the pretensions of university professors ' Meredith Atkinson target here - to become the intellectual leaders of the working class. Unlike the Ruskin Labour College at Oxford, the Victorian Labouq College was not out to foster the self-development of individuals or rrto to give the workers some general culture; its aim was to fit them do better work for the class to which they belonged".5 In South Australia, W. Martin Gormlie pursued the same line, attacking Heatonfs presentation of social theory as one which planned

s\erald (Melbourne), I lr{arch 1918 See for discussion of Baraccht and the Victorian Labour College, D. Walker, Dream and DLsilLusion (Canberra 1976) p. II2. 295.

to nibble all the different schools and phases of thought, to concentrate on none and to thus divert the movement for real working class education frorn its goal the abolition of the capitalist systern.6

All university schemes, in Gormliers opinion, were the sane: only the trade unions could attempt to educate the worker. Frederic Sinclaire agreed that the university had nothing to give the worker because it was as much an adjunct of capitalisn as was the liberal party in I politics. Sinclairers journal FelLouship took the occasion of the

Victorian grant of ÉfOOO to the W.E.A. in March 19f8 for a vituperative analysis of the conspiracy announcing, "the Government is satisfied as to the orthodoxy of the teaching it now subsidisesrt. Money spent on such education softened the aspirations and minds of the workers, drew their rnost intelligent children away fron their origins up into the middle classes, and so ensured a "docile and contented proletariatrr.

How could the W.E.A, be on the side of the worker, the article asked, when it advocated conscription and Imperialisn - the clear reference again being to }.leredith Atkinson - and when its Director in Adelai.de,

Mr Heaton, \tras t'feted by the Chamber of Comrnerce"? It was all, said FeLLoaship, part of a "gigantic conspiracy of benevolence".T For.his part, Heaton found his exchanges with Sinclaire stinulating and, having

obtained a copy of the syllabus of the Victorian Labour Co1lege, was

amused to discover that, as far as he could see, the course proposed

by Guido Barrachi on econonics r^ras stolen verbatirn fron the table of contents of Gidets Histot'y of EeonomLe Doctv"Lnes. He told Portus,

6W.tnl. Gormlie to press , 22 May 1917. Newspaper cutting, Heaton Papers. 7p. Sinclaire to press, October 1917. Newspaper cutting, Heaton Papers. Also, article by I'Ivan the Foolr' in FeLLot¡ship' Vol. 4, no. 8, March 1918. 296

Scarcely a word is altered or added, but Baracchi obviously knew so little about economics that he had to steal his syllabus fron the work of a purveyor of capitalistic dope.8

In 1919, when more radical influences ran strong in the Labour movenent, the South Australian Labour Party withdrew from its affiliation

with the W.E.A. because it and Heaton were deemedtttools of Wayrnouth and Pirie Streetstr, and the Port Pirie Trades and Labor Council also refused its support because Heaton was not rrclass-conscious".9 One dedicated cornbatant in the struggle, rrMarxianrr, wrote persistently to the papers attacking Heaton for his part in the plot to dope the workers and accusing him of being arrtrue son of capitalist tuition".10 At the

same time, the Y.N{.C.4. was refusing to hazard association with the dangerously "radicalrt W.E.A. This coincidence of events drew from

Heaton a wry parody on his situation, entitled 'rThe Sorrows of a Non- { Partisanrr and published under the ps rrçi5rg¡rr.1l Thus, in the years he spent in Adelaide, Heaton had ascribed to him most of the views along the political and social spectrum. He was a capitalist and

a Bolshevik, a free-trader and a protectionist, a Quaker, a Roman Catholic, a Free Mason and a Sinn Feiner. He was even said to have declared I'that Confucius was a greater person than Chri5¡rr.12

Heatonrs views weîe not, as the South AustraLian [,,/ov,kez, had pronounced,

of an "advanced radical naturerr in the sense that he, more than any of his fe1low W.E.A. intellectuals, advocated the revolutionary reconstruction

SHeaton to G.V. Portus, 18 December 1917 anð SyLlabtts and Constitution of Victoz,ian Labour CoLLege (Melbourne c. 1917), Heaton Papers. gAduertisen, 1 January 1923. l0"Marxianr? to Press, c. 1917. Newspaper cutting', Heaton Papers. 1lH. lleaton ("Kismet"), "The Sorrows of a Non-Partisantr, AustraLian Highuay, Vol. 9, Novernber 1919. r2Aduertiser, I January 1923. 297 . of society along Marxist-Leninist lines. He was more 'rproletarian" in synpathies than Atkinson, more of a political econornist than Copland and more of a dernocrat than Mayo. Like Portus, he assented to the broad Marxist analysis of history and capitalisn but preferred social justice to economic inevitability as the dynanic of future social reconstruction. Socialism, he wrote, will have to cease saying rsocialisn is the next econornic orderr and say once more tsocialisn is the embodinent of a higher ethical code, and the realisation of an ideal of econornic justice. It rnust come, not because it has got to come, but because it ought to come. Exploitation nust go because it is robbery; private appropriation must go because it injures the social well-being; extremes of wealth and poverty must vanish because they are morally unhealthy for rich and poor alike. Socía1ism must be the victory of rnind over matter, of ideals over economics, of justice over selfishness ...r13

As he saw it, his role as an educator and critic was to assist his students in understanding the plesent order and to scrutinise the possible alternatives, without adopting any one as the panacea:

The best way to understand contemporary society is to see how that society evolved, study the forces behind it, and trace the growth of rival social theories. l4

This was the organising principle of his lecture course in economic

history. In 1918, Heaton issued thirty-seven lectuTe sulilnaries in panphlet forrn. These were re-published in 1921 as no. 5 in the W.E.A.

Series under the title of Moderm EeononrLc History üith speciaL referenee to AtßtraLia. After his year abroad in 1924, he revised this edition giving more space to his growing interest in the study of new lands - Australia, America and Canada - and less to thetrisrnsr and social

1 3H . Heat on, EcononrLcs, Histor"LcaL, Descriptiue and TheoreticaL, (W.E.A. Adelaide c. 1918) Lecture no. 28, P 8. 14tbid., Foreword to Lecture no. 1. 298 theories which so prfeoccupied his teaching in the immediate post-war years.

The forces which Heaton identified in his history as shaping contemporary society were predoninantly econonic. The way in which the growth of trade and industry had changed the life of pre-industrial man was vividly described. His students learned of the changes in conditions and social structure wrought by industrialisation and of the increasingly rnonopolistic evolution of capitalism. He traced the emergence of the twin aneliorist forces of state regulation and trade unionism which had developed in response to laissez-faire economy. But consideration was also given to the influence of theory as a factor in

economic and social systems. Theories of individualism, liberalisn, Utopian and lrlarxist socialisn, syndì-calism and guild socialism, of Co-operation and Co-partnership, were expounded and critically exarnined.

In the fight of all this, he came to Australiafs economic development: lectures were devoted to the developrnent of trade unionism and \ industrial legislation, to the fiscal problem of the tariff and to arbitration and wages policy.

Heaton shared the evolutionist view of socía1 developrnent which

generally prevailed at the time but, within the movement of human history towards progress, he discerned the same dialectic which concerned all the ü/.8.4. intellectuals - that between liberty and authority, individualism and interventionisrn, or, as lr{ayo put it, between denocracy and freedon. His own period, he believed, was one marked by the intervention of authority in the expansion of the sphere of the state but he also thought he saw the beginnings of a reaction against the excesses and failures of state action. The problem he posed his students was how far the state could remain laissez-faire and how far 299.

the citizen could manage by voluntary, corporate effort. As he developed his history of this question, he drew attention to the

similarity of the economic arrangements of pre-industrial regimes - the area of his or^/n research in England - to the comprehensive regulation of econonic life in the nodern state. pre-industrial regulation of trade and industry was largely dismantled in the nineteenth

century but in reaction against the new freedorn, workers had been provoked into protective associations and, then, into reliance upon politics and the state for reforn. Now, in 1918, they stood upon the brink of a new history in the wake of the ltrar which had changed the terms of the struggle once again. In his analysis, labour was groping

for new policres.: it was seeking a voice in the nanagement of

industry as it had eartier looked for a voice in the government of the country.

Conceding that the state had played an important part in mitigating social evi1s, Heaton nonetheless wanted to denythologise the 'rsocial laboratoryrt. The collectivist state had, in his view, been correctty perceived by those critics who doubted its radicalism, who pointed to its palliative measures and who saw it as a prop of bourgeois capitalisn.

It had done little to alter the distribution of wealth or to solve the labour problen. Following the general criticism of G.D.H. cole and other guild socialists, Heaton agreed that democratic gains in the political area had only been played off against unchanging economic realities. The idea he wished to introduce to his students was that any break-through into a new social order must involve sorne alteration of the industrial state. He laid out, therefore, the various contemporaïy strategies for achieving this end but his critique of each suggested flaws in then all - either in the problems of transition or in the 300. machinery of the economic and social arrangenents they proposed. His ideal principle was the self-government that the devolutionary theorists proposed in both the control of governments and the control of industry but he had deep reservations about the organisation of guild socialisn and about the difficulty of preserving a proper balance in society between the interests of the producer and those of the consumer. Self- goveïnnetìt, initiative, voluntarism, however, depended in the end on rrthe standard of intelligence and character in a dernocracyt'.15 'Ihis was the question to which all the w.E.A. discussion returned.

Five years later, in a series of articles for the Printing Tv'ades JourmaL, Heaton reviewed the very linited success of self-governnent

schemes in industry, from the Whitley Councils in Britain to the Bolshevik policies in Russia. The gloomy lecolld, he concluded, was the result of the workerfs lack of education for the task: he was not pTepared for the expert work of industrial managenent, finance

and production planning. If labour were to be econornically free then it would have to acquire economic sophistication, to be trained in new ski11s and to be given a broad education in the questions of production

and exchange. 16

Turning to Australia, he believed that the question of the location of the control of industry had been tardily put here because of the acceptance of the legislative route to reforrn in the arbitration system. The emphasis had remained, therefore, on matters such as wages and conditions of work rather than on the more fundannental problem of

lsfb¿d., Lectures 1-37, passim. See also H. Heaton, Modern EeononrLe History uith SpeeLaL RefeTenæ to Austv'alia (W.E.A' series no. 5 Adelaide 1925). l6H. Heaton ("Adam Snith, iun."), "Experiments in Governrnent Controlrr Pr"Lnl;ing Trades Jourynal, 12 June 1923. 301

the status of the worker in industry. As his pre-ì^/ar lectures for the w.Ij.A. in England showed, he had seen constructive potential in

the compulsory arbitration schemes operating in Australia and New

Zealand.lT On his arrival in Tasmania he was stilt positive about the Australian experirnent; he told the press,

0n every hand great interest is being shown at Home in the practical outcone of the system here, and even leading Conservative papers are giving a good deal of attention to Australian conditions. l8

But as he continued to study hrages policy and industrial relations, as he saw them before him in Australia, his enthusiasm began to wane. He expressed doubts about the efficacy of the arbitration system in maintaining industrial peace - it seemed to him that the systen accepted the class struggle as a given and proceeded to harden its lines. The court had thus become only a new arena for class warfare. Heatonfs personal adniration for Henry Bournes Higgins natched that

of his lV.E.A. colleagues and he appreciated his work as 'ra fine first landmark in the history of wages regulation??, but he indicated nany problems that the court faced in doing its job: the methods of determining the standard of living and the question of industryrs capacity to pay were but two of the issues drawing public fire after the trlJar.l9 The court, in his view, hacl justified its existence but

the problem of industry would prove intractable until new frameworks were established which would recognise the status of the worker in some form of industrial dernocracy.2o

l7ll. I-leaton, lectures to Cheltenham Christian Social tlnion (c. lgIi) . Newspaper Cuttings Book, Heaton Papers. röHobant DaiLy Post, interview with Heaton, 16 1914. rvH. July Heaton, "The Basic Wage Principle in Australian Wages Regulationrr, EcononrLc JouwLaL, Vol. 3\, 1921 , pp. S0g- Sl9. 20H. Heaton, t^lelfare L,/ork, BulLetin no. 16, Advisory council of science Industry (Melbourne 1919), preface. i02

Heaton's criticlue of the arbitration system went beyond the problens specific to the court to the whole character of the Australian social order as he perceived it. The court was evidence of the hegenony of politics which he saw in Australian life and which he believed cauter- ised initiative and the exploration of alternatives. There was, he found, an ?'obsession with politicsrr in Australia which led to many things being left to the state:21 he wrote in nid-1915,

Political activity seems to have swallowed up the whole of our energies as a people. The State must irnprove industrial conditions; the State rnust raise wages; the State must manage economic affairs generally . . . we wait for political change . .. we wait, hoping that sorne day the political machine will be so perfect that it will be able to produce a perfect econornic society. Poor fools that we are, to believe in the onnipotence of the State. The nation which leaves everything in the hands of its governnent is a nation which deserves to stagnate and decay. For twenty-five years the people of Australia have been looking for economic salvation through the State. Are we satisfied with the achievements of those long years? Have the results been at al1 connensurate with the eneïgy expended? I think not .. .22 His personal, and perhaps nostalgic, preference in all the schenes of self-heIp and self-government which he analysed was for the encourage- ment of Co-operation. Of all those who laboured for the W.E.A. in Australia, he was closest to l4ansbridgers original alliance between the

Co-operative movernent and adult education because of his own Yorkshire experience. While he recognised the feebleness of the cause in Australia where impulses to self-help had been, in his opinion, translated into reliance upon political action, he was, nevertheless, prepared to argue its virtues. He offered his services to organise a voluntary consulnel society in Hobart urging it as a private expression of community, as

2lHeaton to MacGibbon, 3 May 1923. Heaton Papers. 2zúobart DaiLy Post, Heaton to editor, 10 May 1915. 303. against the state-initiated and maintained bodies he had cone to expect in Australia.23 In Adelaide, he found an active Adelaide Co-operative Society which had been set up in 1868 - he soon sought the universityrs approval for his nonination to its Comnittee of Nlanagement.24 He regarded the story of the Adelaide Co-operative Society and that of its sister, the Port Adelaide Society, as being "little less thrilling than the achievement of the Lancashire weavers".25 The appeal of Co- operation was two-fo1d: there was the claim of self-interest and there was the hope of a rrCo-operative Commonwealth" which would prove a super- ior f,orm of social organisation. When the consumer became his own capitalist in the Co-operative movement he had the benefit of his profit while, at the same time, r'laying the foundations of the next social system't to which society would pass as it developed through the stage of capitalisn. Not least in his appraisal of Co-operation was its contribution to education, although littIe had been done in this area in Australia.26

In 1920, Heaton was active in the formation of the South Australian Co-operative Union and in the organisation of the First and

Second Australian Congress of ConsumeTst Co-operative Societies in

I92I and. Ig22. He rvas judged the nost striking and inpressive figure at the Second Congress because of his address on Co-operative education, marked by its "ripeness of knowledge, fluency of speech and keenness

23rb¿d. 24Minutes of the Board of Comrnercial Studies, University of Adelaide, 27 August 1919. 25H. ñeaton, 'rCo-operation of Consumers", Printing Trades JouwmL, 13 (under pseudonym Adam Snith, jun.)' February 1923, p. 25 - 26H. Heâton, i'Ti',e Co-operative Conmonwealthr', Printing Tnades Jourmn'L, 16 January 1923, pp. 4-S (under pseudonym Adarn Snith, jun.). Also H. Heaton, "òõ-operation in Australia", Year Book of the CommonweaLth of AustraLia, no. 17, 1924, pp. 581-586. so4 of Co-operative enthusias^rt.27 llc was not, hc Said, one of those fanatical Co-operators who found the solution of all social problens in the movement, and he had no illusions about its limitations, but he argued that it could, within its linits, contribute substantially to social ptogress.28 To this end he was an energetic propagandist for the cause. Apart fron the training in efficiency and in practical democracy that the running of Co-operative ventures gave the workers' the most profound value was in the I'spirit of Co-operation?r because it gave a new coherence to the conmunity and because it offered an alternative to the class divisions in society. Co-operation was to Heaton an expression of the life ancl health of society - the I'middle wayrr which could avoid both the dorninance of the collectivist state and the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.

Heatonrs r'ïadicalism" was misunderstood by his opponents in Adelaide. His challenge to the Australian social order consisted of a critique of capitalisn but not of a commitment to overthrow it. He hras outspoken in his condernation of the hegenony of politics in Australia which he saw expressed in two ways: one, the degree of state centralisation and government intervention and, two, the way in which every social and econonic issue became a political one. The Australian obsession with politics, as he termed it, was further

compounded in his view by the failure of the major political parties' Both appeared to him to be I'dorninated by wire-pulling and opportunisnil

and both subservient to vested interests. The Labour Party, to which

27co-oper.atiue Net)s, 1 November 1922. Report of Heaton address to the Congress on rrCo-operative Educationrr. 2BH. Heaton, "Co-operation in Australia'r, op. dt. ' p. 586. 305. his social philosophy ought normally to have inclined hin, did not look to intellectuals and ideas. It was flawed by the lack of underlying principles and by the absence of any coherent international po1icy.29

He outlined his own priorities thus,

the alternative seems to be a brand new Political Party, new in its personell (sic.), and preaching the gospel of decency in public 1ife, hard work, better education, a real foreign policy, and fairer distrib- ution of wealth. 3o

He sumrned up his own political philosophy as laissez-faire plus volun- tarism,31 tn alternative to the reliance of citizens on the collective s tate :

We do need a good healthy dose of Laissez-Faire, not Laissez-Faire plus rank individualisn, but one temp- ered by the influence of the many sectional organis- ations with which the country abounds today. We want trade unions and employer federations to work out their problems themselves, we want far more co-operation, both anongst city dwel1ers, and amongst the farmers; we want a large measure of devolution by which much which is done by the state today would be passed over to reformed local authorities. 32

The broad principles of the social order that Heaton envisaged were also those of Bland, Portus and Atkinson - the recognition of the pluralist nature of society, the plea for the co-operation of cornpeting groups in the social who1e, the renewal of local life through the self- reliant effort of the informecl citizen, the extension of denocratic measures to industry, and the need for the renovation of politics. It is doubtful, however, whether Heatonrs rejection in Adelaide had much to do with any 1ocal understanding of these ideals. It had much nore

29Heaton to Grant, 26 May 1919. Heaton Papers. 30 tbíd. 3llleaton to E. Mayo, 14 February 1919. l,,tayo l{S, Baker Library, Harvard University. 32Heaton to Grant , 26 'lvlay I9L9, op. sLt. 506 to do with the problen of teaching and discussing issues rvhich provoked controversy in a smalI provincial city by appearing to threaten established interests. In a smaller community than l.'felbourne or Sydney, the style, personality and message of a well-known speaker from the university comnanded much more attention. The poli-ticisation of Australian culture had been remarked by Lord Bryce when he observed that opinion in Australia appeared to run parallel with class lines: certain elements needed to form breadth and to give variety, or to form a rnediating influence between sharply opposing interests, have been wanting. The opinion of the richer sort as well as that of the nasses runs in a groove with far too little of a syrnpathetic exchange of views.33

Through his role as an educator forning opinion, Heaton aspired to be a rrmediating influencerr but, in the Adelaide of the post-[lar years' such an intellectual function was neither recognised nor permitted. *****

The announcement in June 1925 of Heatonrs resignation and appoint- ment in Canada aroused wide response in the press, in the university, in Labour circles and in the general conrnunity. IIis own conment was predictable: because of the political climate his position at the University had developed into a professional dead-end, It is inpossible to make any progress in the study of economics until sectional interests and partisan- ship are e1iminated.34 In Adelaide he had made many friends but also rnany powerful enemies whose criticisms of hin, he fe1t, were never explicit enough for hin to confront openly. l4oderate Labour representatives, like the Printing Trades

3 3Jatnes Bryce, Modewt Democnacies, Vol. 11 (London I92I), pp. 272-273. 34Neus, 15 August 1925, 307 .

Employees Union, concluded that class-interests had prevailed. One

Labour M.P. on the University Council, Mr L.P. Hunkin, protested that

Heaton had been rtpersecuted with peculiar nalignancy for puïely political reasonsrr. He claimed that the Government was prepared to endow a chair to retain Heatonrs services but that there was strong opposition in the university which woutd insist on lengthy appointment procedures when

Heaton hinself nust rnake a quick decision about his future.35 In the South Australian Parliament, Mr F.ll1. Birrell, President of the South Australian Labour Parly, feared that l{eaton was leaving Adelaide for

Teasons which rvere not at aI1 creditable to the University Council; if

it had acted because it believed that Heatonrs views were "advanced", then its action was to be dePlored: His ability, like that of many another good man in South Australia has not been recognised, and he has gone to another country as so many have gone to othel states. 36

The loss was irreparable, Birrell considered, because Heaton, more than any other, had given to people of all classes a better knowledge of economics, social problems and international affairs. The South

Austy,aLian Inloy,key, was convinced that if tteaton hað not given the public the benefit of his knowledge on these matters, he would have held the chair long since. It then called for a Royal Connission into the allegation that the university was controlled by outside financial

interests . 3 7

The Registez, and the Aduertiser did not comnent on the politics

t E-- " ulveüs, 20 August 1925 36 F.W. BirreIT, South nnstraLicn Paz'Liamentary Debates,6 August 1925, p .)JJ. 3 TSouth Austz'aLian Workez', 26 .Iune 1925. 308. of Heatonfs departure but both acknowledged his achievenent in raising the status of econonics in the university to the point where it was now one of the most important subjects. He had built up one of the largest schools of economics in the British Enpire, having noI^I over 200 students.SS

One journalist was inspired to develop an analogy between Heatonrs case and the Scopes trial which was proceeding in Dayton, Tennessee, in July Igzi,and was widely reported in the Australian press. He was prepared to call Heaton one of the foremost living econornists whose work was rmrch better appreciated overseas. In Adelaide his teaching had not been tolerated because he had eschewed a "class-viewtt and so alienated the comrnercial and financial world, despite "his patent mastership of his subject'r, his "boundless devotion to his task and studentsrr and his outstanding abilities. rrlt is hard to see on what grounds" concluded the writer:, "Adelaide can afford to laugh at Tennessee".39 Within the ¡niversity, Darnley Naylor, Chairman of the Joint Connittee for the W.E.A. Tutorial Classes, believed that the Council would learn to regret its action,40 and Vice-Chancellor William Mitchell said publicly that if Heaton showed any sign of wanting to return they would not fill his job for a year.4I Students and editors of papers for which he had written joined his colleagues in the ltl.E.A. in lanenting his going.

Among his lV.E.A. friends, Portus wrote that Heaton was in his opinion the best man in the country in his subject,q2 a iudgement which L.F. Giblin

39Regisl;er, 17 June 1925 and Aduertiser', 17 June 1925. 39Cailey proof of article, signed H.S.T., entitled "Adelaide and Tennessee. A Compari-sot p"ovoked by Dr Heatonts Departurer'. A note in the nargin ,ays ì'Got helã over and was never published in full". Heaton Papers. 40H. Darnley Naylor to Heaton, 19 July 1925. Heaton Papers. 4TAduer.tiser', 10 August 1925. Report of Heaton Farewell. 42G.V. Portus to Heaton, 18 June 1925. Portus wlote 'ryou are in ny opinion the best man in this country in your subjects. The ridiculosity of passing you over for Gunn and Copland now becomes apparent I have á1ways had the cornfortable feeling that you knew anà understood and made allowances for me and that I could always rely upon you. Though our intimacy has been rnuch less than I have wisired, I irave somehów or other developed a real affection for your sturdy, old forthright, Yorkshire, mixed-up se1f.r' I{eaton Papers. 509 supported in his letter: I stil1 feel rotten about your going and havenrt the heart to offer congratulâtions on your appointnent' Itrs perfectly dannable to think that a university in Ruitralia can sti1l be run on these pateolithic principles.Itriedtoenquireabouttheposítionin Adelaiäe last year but the ansvrer was always rather vague. That certain people would not agree to adver- tising your job at professorial status while you were there-butwhowastheactiveforceofthecertain people and exactly what was the motive I dj-d not get clear' I canrt see how any impartial judge could doubt thatyouweretheStrongestmanintheEcononicsline in Australia or New.Zealand and the getting of you for Adelaide should have been a scoop - of course you might havepreferredtomoveonanyway.Thatwouldhavebeen sad.Butitlsthenotatleastofferingtheprofess-orial job which makes your going now so partiðufarly bloody'a3

ItistruethatHeatonhadtriedtomoveon,almostsincehe to had arrived in Adelaide. since 1919, he had macle efforts to return mind sir England from which he felt greatly remote. Perhaps he had in Willian Ashleyrs words recalling that he had served many years outside England in North America before his return to Birningharn. Heaton had applied for the chair of econonics at wellington in 1919, when it had appeared for the first time that the Degree couTse at Adelaide and would now be deferred.44 In 1921, he sought a post in Aberdeen hereAshleyspokewarmlyofhisgreatvigourandhissubstantial contribution in his book just published - ttMT Heaton is one of the few naterial men who know how to combine minute investigation of original with a philosophical out1ook"45 - and he had also corresponded with Lillian Knowles about the possibilities of employrnent in England'q6

a3L.F. Giblin to Heaton, 8 August 1925' Heaton Papers' 44Ã for Heaton for the l{ellington post is r"f"rence frorn J.F. Fowlei cit' attachecl to Heaton's application for Nlelbourne chair, 1924, op' Itð;;t of reference frãm Sir ltrilliam Ashley in application for lulelbourne chai-r, Ig24. AIso a letter from R.H. Tawney to Heaton, 10 october l92I refers to lieaton being in for the Aberdeen chair for which Tawney had sent in a "laudatory letterrr. Heaton Papers' a6L. Knowles to Heaton, 9 August 1922' Heaton Papers' 310

In 1922, it irppeare

Australian universjties which might give him the opportunity to nove when Brisbane was setting up a chair in history and economics, Sydney had forced the retirement of R.F. Irvine (who urged Heaton to apply as his successor) and Melbourne was calli-ng for a replacement for Meredith

Atkinsonrs post. Nothing came of these moves and he briefly consiclered a readership in Commerce at the University of London in the same year;47 then, while abroad in 1924, he corresponded with Oxford on the prospects of a Readership there.48

Heaton believed that his reputation for radicalisn blocked his chances for the appointments in Brisbane and Melbourne. The W.E.A. wanted him to succeed l4eredith Atkinson as Director of Tutorial Classes in lrlelbourne and, in a field of forty applicants, Heaton was placed on a short list of three along with D.B. Copland and J.A. Gunn. Mansbridge,

Tawney and Zinmern were then asked to interview Gunn, while information was sought on Coplandrs uncertain health. The Committee decided that it must find out more about Heaton, since reports "both favourable and criticalr' had reached some members of the Committee. The University Council also had a standing instruction to inquire from any candidates whether they had rendered war service, and if not, for a statement of their reasons. Unfortunately, the further information on lleaton from Adelaide and his statement about war service are not to be found in the file with his application but it is hard to imagine that either would have advanced his cause.49 lVith incredulity, Heaton noted the outcorne -

47Heaton, Personal Diary, 31 December 1922 entry takes stock of these events during the year. Heaton Papers. 4SHeaton to Oxford, 1924. Letter written from Queenrs University in reply to letter from Oxford about l"lynors Fellowship anrl Readership. Heaton Papers. 49University of Melbourne Registry Files 1922/433. 311 .

"They chose Gunn"Fo Indeed, that appointment was one of l,lelbourners most disastTous; it spelled an end to any effective interest in sociology (which Gunn professed) and a decline in the activities of the W.E.A. in Victoria. lVhen Heatonf s departure hras announced three years later, Copland wrote to hin reflecting on the I'appalling state of affairs in the Tutorial Classes Departrnentrr at Melbourne since Gunn arrived. Fle reported how one of his students had facetiously remarked that the inport of Gunn and the export of l{eaton upset Coplandfs principles of international trade.51

As the occupant of the first chair of cornmerce at the University of ltfelbourne, Copland felt a certain personal anguish over Heatonrs going since Heaton had also been an applicant for the same posítion in 1924. Copland hinself had written to Heaton, then at the L.S.E., about the chair and urged hin to apply. He would himself be a candidate but he declared,

I must say that you should be appointed before me and I will let that be known if any opportunity should occur. I have no wish to exploit your so-called unpopularity in high financial ci-rcles.52 Copland suspected that the I'hand of high finance would weigh heavily upon this appointmentrr and that none of them night be favoured. Heaton did submit a lengthy application for the chair, fron London, and this time he prefaced it with a letter which anticipated the inevitable further inquiries in Adelaide. "I am well aware that by some Adelaide business- men and wage-eaïners I an regarded with grave suspicion", he stated, but he wanted it to be known that none of his critics were ever students of

SoNote added to his copy of Application for 1922 position. Heaton papers. 51D.8. Copland to Heaton, 18 Jtrne 1925. Heaton Papers. s2Copland to t{eaton, 14 March 1924. Heaton Papers. 3r2. either his lectures or his work. He volunteered the names of four men who had lteen most active in expressing thcir dissent - two business- men, l\1. Flerbert Phillipps ancl .I.l\l. lrlacGregor' and two teft-wing critics, lrlr F.W. Lundie of the A.l\r.U., and lvlr 1\r.14. Gornlie, well-known socialist. I{e then countered with four other nanes of ex-students and trade union officials who would speak well of hin, and who did have first-hand experience of his teaching.53

Despite the fact that his experience and his writings were substantial by Ig24, Heaton was not successful in this application' William Ashley nade it clear that Heaton was the preferred candidate of the English cornmittee which was asked to advise and which also included ÌVilliam Beveridge and a lrlelbourne professor. Since Melbourne did not take its advice, Ashley comrnented tersely, trl an not sure I sha1l be very anxious to take the trouble to sit on a sinilar conmittee in future."54 Copland wïote, after the event, reporting that the

business men on the committee wanted a 'rbusinesS" appointment - even

a man who knew no economics - and that Heaton might have been rejected

because he was too much of a historian. Even so, copland did not believe that Heaton had been treated fairly, either then or in 1922' Although pleased at his own success, copland could not but feel that

Heaton had been objected to rron account of opinionsrt.55 His final

comment, in 1925, again attested to Heatonrs standing in the eyes of his fellow economists:

53Rpplication for the chair of commerce, University of Melbourne 1924' oD. cit. 5!w. Arhtey to lleaton, 27 ,Januaty 1925. lleaton Papers W.H. Beveridge to Heaton, 3 Novembe't 1924, state "I heard the other day that.onit."y to our strong reconmendations here the Melbourne job has not come to you . . . " Heaton Papers . 55cop1and to Heaton, 12 September 1924 - Heaton Papers ' 313.

So it has happened. Your letteî gave us some hope that you might wi.n in Adelaide but the opposition was apparently too forniclable. I have no doubt that you will find bigger problems and nore opportunities in America and, in the long run the move will be beneficial It nakes one feel insignificant compared with the fine stand you have taken on nany things and the appreciation with which you are held in circtes that count but have little clain to control the cash.56

A central problem for Heaton - and for the early professionalisation of economics in Australian universities - had been the tension between the outside requirements of commerce and the prevailing ideas about economics. The business men who endowed or supported or were involved with the teaching of com¡nercial students in universities wanted practical training in nethods and principles and were wary of the theoretical dangers of economics. lvhen the university of Adetaidets Board of commercial studies was developing its Diploma in Lgo7, R.F. Irvine had advised thern about the irnportance of economics to such a course, pointing to the conflict:

With us Economics is the basis; it furnishes the body of principles which give unity to the whole study of Commerce and Industry. With you, technique is the basis: and although there nay be some advantage in this, the treatment of technique in a series of more or less un- related topics, seems to me to be contraty to the true conception of University studies. It lacks coherence, and, while it may turn out good clerks and accountants, it fails to produce broad-ninded citizens.5T

In his letter to the Chairman of the Board of Cornmercial Studies before the crucial meeting of \lay 29, 1925, Heaton had argued for the sarne liberal dimensions in a university education,

56Cop1and to Heaton, 18 June 1925. Heaton papers. 5TMinutes of the Board of Commercial Studies, University of Adelaide, 28 August 1907. 3r4.

I regard our Commerce school as the giving of a liberal education with ar comnercial basis. This means that a teacher nust help his students in the accumulation of facts and get them into the habit of trying to be well- inforned, on the one hand. On the other hand, he must train then to examine rival theories and reach their own conclusions. The teacherrs business is to state as impartially as he can rival theories and points of view when the subject is a controversial one, leaving the students to reach their own conclusions by the exercise of their own thinking machinery.58 In the discussion which followed Heatonrs resignation, the problem persisted. l,,lr ltrallace Bruce, then lfayor and president of the Chamber of Comrnerce, addressed the Cornmerce Students Association, a few weeks 1ater. Ile agreed that the establishnent of a chair in any subject meant public recognition that the subject was of sufficient educational and social irnportance to warrant special study. He found that this was true in the matter of conmerce but, in the Chamberrs view, it was the teaching of econornics which presented the risks. Bruce defined

economics as the I'study of the material welfare of the people" and declared that he would be sorry if its teaching "resulted in clouding the University in a murky haze of party po1itics".59 The Neus printed a strongly clissenting editorial on lfr Bruce's opinions and was provoked to ask, ttwhat is there in this community that nakes the teaching of

Economics nore difficult anð hazardous than in any other?r' If economics were as lr{r Bruce defined it, then there was no more irnportant subject for Australia. It was ridiculous, continued the Neus, to teach cornmerce without its economic foundation and it was this very fear that had

caused Adelaide to 1ag behind the rest of the country, and the Empire,

58lleaton to the Cl'rairman of the Board of Commercial Studies, 28 l'lay 1925 Heaton Papers. sgMeu)s, editorial, 15 July 1925. 315 . in the founding of a chaìr, ancl to lose Nlr lleaton.60 t\rilliam Mitchell was also much opposed to the idea that "the man in practiceil was better able to teach than the man acquainted with theory - this, he denounced at an organised Farewell for Heaton as ttan ignorant notion".6l Mitchell pursued the campaign for the chair after Heaton left; Phillipps and Bruce and the Chanber were finally persuaded, acquiescing in Mitchellrs insistence that it was an economist and not 'ra practical man'r that was needed.62 The Chair was finally established and fi1led in 1930 by an Adelaide economist, L.G. l,lelville.

Not only was Heatonrs positj-on as the educator of future business

leaders one that was particularly vulnerable and susceptible to outsj-de pressures; there was also the 'rphilosophical outlookrr, as ltlilliarn Ashley ca1led it, which characterised his writing and teaching. Heaton as an economic historian was more of a political than a theoretical economist; he was openly concerned with the hurnan and social implications of economic policy and with the various social theories that inforned then. He described his own strengths and weaknesses in his letter to Oxford concerning the lvlynors Fellowship and Readership there: Again, if the person appointed has to be a specialist in money and banking, I am useless. ltty ten years teaching in new universities has compelled ne to be an academic general practitioner, covering the whole range of economics. But recently, I have been able to narrow down my field to modern economic history, industrial organisation and practice, and industrial relations. I am not good at pure theory or on cuïrency problens but I have a good working knowledge of the stTucture and operation of industry, of its recent developments and of what can broadly be called the labour prob1em.6 3

ao rb¿d. 'rAduertiser,, 10 August 1925. 62lv{ . Mitchel l to lleaton, 23 August 1925 Heaton Papers. 63Heaton na' 1- to Oxford, Ig24 . vy. vuu. 316

Ilcltonrs f ic-'ìtl tlF rcscrtrclt, tlle r?l¿rbour' ¡lrullllctnrr, wils ¿tlnlc¡st by cleflinit:ion a controversial one in Australia, but it was his public activities as educator, publicist and critic wl'rich stirred most of the suspicion that clouded his work. F.A. Btand urged him on in this ro1e, putting his finger both on what Heaton most vatued and on what rnost provoked hostility: You ought to be writing but donrt do too nuch of the erudíte rresearchingr of Coplandfs drearns. Let it be more of the Wa1las, Russe1l, Tawney endeavours with a modern bite. I wish I had your pen to chide and guide politicians ín the way they should go.64

In Australia, there was, it seerned, much more future in being a Copland than a Tawney or a Russell.

As Heaton sailed from Australia in August 1925, an i_nteresting exchange of letters took p1ace. T. Griffith Taylor had written to lleaton asking for a copy of his article in luhe QuarterLy JournaL of Economics. Taylor was then professor of geography in the university of

Sydney and was suffering much vilification for the shadows his research was casting on the notion of Australia Unlimited, in particular, for his doubts that the tropical spaces of Australia would ever hold sma1l farns or that the population would ever exceed twenty million. Labelled a trpessirnist. himself, Taylor inquired whether Heaton had ever been in hot water for saying unpatriotic things "about the land which is 25 tines the size of England and 1,489,65212 times as big as Gibraltarr. Taylorts letter reached Heaton as he 'arrived in canada and drew an outspoken response: l.ly chief offence has been that I trod on the stupid golden-corns of Adelaiders elderly ptutocrats, and the sequel would make a good apoendix to an Australian edition of Upton Sinclairls Goose-step.65

6aF.A. Bland to Heaton, 5 August Ig2S. Heaton Papers. 6SHeaton to T. Griffith Taylor, 14 September 1925. Griffith Taylor Papers, I'lS 1003/9/823 N.L.A. 3I7 .

Heaton acknowledged the great benefit he had derived from TayLorfs work on the Australian environment and wondered if Taylor had ever considered coming to North America, where, unlike in his native 1and, his work was regarded as exciting and pioneering. Heaton had in fact mentioned Taylorrs name at the University of Toronto which was planning the establishment of a department of geography.66 Taylor responded warnly to the idea and remarked, our paths have been somelhat a1ike, as regards public non-appreciationl llowever, ily colleagues stand by my views and the "many-headed" will learn to agree with us - after we are dead.67 Three years later, Griffith Taylor left Sydney to take up a chair at the University of Chicago where he pursued a long and fruitful career.68

In 1920 Heaton had urged Alfred Zirnnern to visi.t the lV.E.A. in Australia, in the following terms: All tlie States are very keen on getting an occasional visitor to come out here, for you have no conception of the sense of isolation, and therefore of ever- threatening insulatity, which broods over this distant continent . b 9

Leaving Australia in 1925, he may have felt that he had rejoined the wor1d. In July 1926, he was elected to the Inaugural Council of the Econonic tlistory Society in England which, with Willian Ashley as its first. president, was composed of most of the leading scholars in the fie1d.7o

6SHeaton to T. Griffith Taylor, 14 September 1925. Griffith Taylor Papers , lils 1003 /9 /823 N. L . A . øa rbid. 6Tcriffith Taylor to Heaton, 26 October 1925. Griffith Taylor Papers. 6BSee T. Griffith Taylor, Jourmegman TayLoz, The Education of a Scientist ( London f958) . 6 9Heaton to Zimmern, 15 June 1920. Zirnrnern Letters I\ß 3731 N.L.A 70see T.C. Barker, "The Beginnings of the Economic History Society", EeonomLc Historg Reuieu, Vol. XXX, no. l, 1977, p. 14. lV.G.K. Duncan and R.A. Leonard in their history of the University of Adelaide note that, after his move to tl're University of Minnesota, Heaton 'rbuilt a reputation as one of the most erninent economic historians in the English-speaking wor1d." W.G.K. Duncan and R.A. Leonard, 'tThe Llniuersitl¡ of Adelaide 1874-19 74 (Ade laide 19 73) p. 7I . CONCLUS I ON 31 8,

When the first issue of the Economic Record appeared in 1925,

Herbert Heaton greeted the event as a moment of passage in the intellectual life of Australia. ft rneant to hin the beginning of the systematic study and teaching of econonic science in Australia and as such seemed a fitting occasion to review the problerns and progress of that discipline in the country which he had recently left. The econom- ist had now become persona grata in the land where I'every political problen was an economic onert and where the distrust of theory and the fear of criticism of the existing social order had hitherto inhibited his legitimation. Heaton attributed this advance to the fact that economic expertise was needed to guide Australiars social experiments but also to the impetus which the W.E.A. had given to economics and related fields. The W.E.A., he rnaintained, had recruited to its ranks many of those under whom econonic studies would come to maturity; the writing and teaching of this group, necessì-tated by the denands of worker education in a young dernocracy, had added strength fron "without the walls of the universitiesr?.1 Almost twenty years later, Heaton reiterated these clains with regard to the developnent of Australian historical studies. In another retrospective article, 'rThe Progress of Historical Studies in Australia", published in the Jouz,naL of

Modev,n History in 1943, he pointed again to the stimulus to the study of Australia provided by the worker education movernent after 1914.

This article, occasioned by the appearance of five new books fron

Melbourne University Press, vras itself a landnark because it was one

lH. Heaton, rrProgress and Problems of Australian Econonics", Amenieøn Eeonomie Reuieu, VoI, 16, 1926, pp. 235-248: 319 . of the first historiographical exercises in the field of Australian history. The books which he welcorned treated the sorts of issues which he had recommended for research two decades earlier: R.M. Craw-

fordrs )uv'seLues and the Pacifie and Lewis Lett's The Papunn Aehieue- ment were addressed to Australiars relations to Asia and the Pacific;

Paul Hasluck examined internal policy in Black Austz,aLians: a sw,uey of Natiue PoLiey in Western Austv,aLia LB29-1897 and Brian Fitzpatrick had produced a formidable econonic history of Australia - which had been Heatonf s own anbition - in The Bnitish Flrnpíne ín Austy,alia 1834-1939. Looking back, he praised the work of the early professors, Scott, Wood and Henderson for their promotion of Australian history and for their drive to assenble archival naterials, but he also recalled the

I1l.E.A. publícations which had preceded the establishment of a university press and were the result of the engagernent of social scientists in adult education.2

To a certain extent this thesis has been an elaboration of Heatonf s perspectives in its assessment of the contribution of the

W.E.A. circle to the acadernic and intellectual development of modern. Australia. It began, however, as an inquiry into what Australians themselves thought of the social order they had created by the end of the Deakínite years, noting that nost of the accounts of the social laboratory to that point had come from the pens of foreign visitors-_. what becane clear from contemporary writing was the anxiety of those who took thought about the same question. There was a pressing ah/areness of the need to evaluate Australiats achievements which was

2H. Fleaton, "The Progress of Historical Studies in Australiarr, JounynL of ltlodenn Histoz,y , Vo I . XV, 194 3, pp . 304 -3lO . 320. sharpened by participation in a war which threatened the old social order everywhere and made crucial the reconstruction of a new one.

Not only was there conmon conplaint that there r^ras no body of analytical work on Australia but it was a recurring criticism that Australia lagged behind the rest of the world in providing the education which trained the type of mind able to undertake social analysis and social planníng. At the tine, the key to social pr'oblens appeared to nany to lie in the new social sciences which, by 1914, had barely a foot- hold in Australian universities. The W.E.A. intellectuals attempted to match their perception of these gaps with their own efforts to fill them. Within the universities, they promoted the development of those social sciences which would train new experts and, outside the universities, they aranged forums from which to raise the level of public understanding of current issues. They undertook the W.E.A. Series which was explicitly designed as I'economic, political and social studies' and consciously labelled rrwritten in Australiatt,

At the end of the twenties the seeds of the social sciences had been sown but the maturation expressed in the creation of separate departments and in the national co-ordination of research was still many years away. The American Social Sciences Research Council had been founded in 1923 but a cornmittee to consider the formation of an equivalent body in Australian was not convened until L942. The chairman of the provisional conrnittee, K.S, Cunningham, surveyed the situation at the end of the Second World War in terms not so diffeíent from those of R.F. Irvine and Francis Anderson in 1914:

It is commonly agreed that the social sciences are relatively undeveloped in Australia ... This is one particularly strong argunent for the vigorous development of the social disciplines in this country. Although there are elements of univers- ality in all forms of social study, and although 32I.

questions of nethodology are the same wherever they occur, the concrete problens dealt with by the social sciences take on forrns which are peculiar to the countTy concerned. Llntil Australia devotes due attention to training workers in this field, many of her urgent social problens will remain undealt with, or will be dealt with unscientifically.3

Cunningham was, however, able to acknowiedge the neLatíue development of the social sciences which has been one of the nain concerns of this study, and to find among the menbers of his committee such o1d I4I.E.A. colleagues as D.B. Copland, F.A. Bland, F.R. Mauldon, I{. Alcock and R.C. Mi11s.

with the exception of Elton Mayors thought and Blandrs designs for the structures of Australian government, there was little that was original and nuch that was derivative in the social theory which informed the w.E.A. critique of Australia. rt is argued, however, that what was inportant was the systematic and pioneering attempt to apply to Australia some of the hypotheses and techniques developed elsewhere during a high period of social theory in the western worrd. what emerged - and what has not hitherto been noted - was a critique of the Australian social order that was at odds with a1l the myths in questioning the triumph of the collectivist state. The conventional wisdom held that here in the South Seas was a land where social pïogress had been achieved through the political alliance of the working class with a group of liberals whose progressive philosophy relied on the state as the agency of social reform. The rejection of this concept of social reconstruction by the w.E.A. group in the early years of their

3f.S. Cunningham, SociaL Scíenee Researeh in AustnaLia (\lelbourne 1945) p. 7. cunninghan had also been a w.E.A. tutor in Victoria in the mid- twenties. 322. careers was a mark of the influence of the cluster of ideas which was then loosely called sociology. In this social theory, emphasis was placed upon devolution - in government, in industry and in community life. The state was to be regarded as an association primus inter pares so that political allegiance was seen as only one of the many

loyalties conrnanding the energy of the citizen. The ideal of the active citizen participating in democracy by operating in his natural and voluntary groups ran counter to the dominance of potitics and the state as they observed it in Australia. The participation of the citizen was always predicated on the cultivation of his intelligence - the business of all education. Thus the IV.E'4. intellectuals did not engage with politics except to point out the vulnerability of

democracy to its excessive influence. It must be concluded, however, that this social theory was always a narginal set of ideas in Australia. It did little to change the realities of Australian étatisn or to solve the class hostilities it sought to weld into the corporate whole. Indeed, the discipline of sociology which purveyed this concept of the social comlnunity itself evaporated and was not revived in Australian universities until the nineteen sixties. The W.E.A. Series also disappeared fron later bibliographies but, I would argue, the problems

and questions it addressed have persisted. It was in the discourse of these books, and of the circle which produced then, that nany of the terms in which the subsequent discussion of Australia has been cast found their first fornulation. The social analysis of the W.E'A' passed into a general deposit fro¡n which such seminal writers as

W.K. I{ancock drew and passed on influential ideas'

Hancockts AustraLía, published in 1930, has attained classic status in Australian historical studies. Regarded as a brilliant 323.

starting point in the evaluation of Australia, it has set the terms of many of the debates in later historical writing. Its eloquent and

epigrammatic style makes AustnaLia still an exciting book but it has also been deceptive in giving the force of apparent new insight to nuch that had been said before. Hancockrs ability to synthesise the issues of three previous decades should be recognised as nuch as his

originality. By 1930, as this thesis has denonstrated, Hancock was able to write out of a tradition of social comnent and could offer not tentative suggestions but virtual definitions of Australiars social order and political economy. This is particularly true of one of the books najor concerns - the nature and role of the state. Hancock declared with conviction what the W.E.A. intellectuals had laboured to formulate:

Thus Australian dernocracy has cone to look upon the State as a vast public utility, whose duty it is to provide the greatest happiness for the greatest nunber.4

He defined as a key element in the prevailing ideology of Australian denocracy rrthe appeal to goveïnment as the instrurnent of self-realis- ationrr, a phrase which echoed the commentary of Meredith Atkinson.5

He identified the same tensions and problems to which Atkinson, Mayo, Heaton, Bland, Irvine and Eggleston had previously cal1ed attention -

for example,

Social democracy therefore ains both at efficiency - and at popular control. Can the two be reconciled?G At the heart of this social democracy, Hancock found the same dilemma

aW.x. Hancock, AustraLia (Brísbane 1961), p. 55. srbid., p. s7. Cf. M. Atkinson, The Neu SociaL )nder, pp. 273-274. 6Hancock, op. eít., p.106 and ff. In this chapter on State Socialisn, Hancock acknowledges the work of Eggleston and Bland. He also quotes G.V. Portus on the history of the Labour movement, see pp. I70-L71. 324. with which the !V.E.A. group had struggled, that between the demands of the ethical and the economic. He explained it lucidty as a conflict between an ideal notion of social justice - as expressed in such concepts as a?rfair and reasonable vragerror a ilfairil protective tariff

- and the economic necessities pronounced by an impartial economic science.T Finally, one of Hancockrs most memorable judgements hras his assertion of the hegemony of politics in Australia. rn alnost every department of life, with the exception of their pursuit of pleasure, Hancock believed that the activities of the Australian peoplerrlose their clear outline in the universal snudge of politics!r.8

This was surely the end-product of an era of social analysis to which the W.E.A. contribution was central.

Thus, the legacy of the ltl.E.A. intellectuals extended beyond the immediate endeavour to educate the worker. To the origins of the social sciences in Australia, and to the study of Australia itself; this group provided a unique shape and stimurus. As a collaborative intellectual venture, the w.E.A. series has had no conparable sequel. It is important, therefore, to restore these books in their sociological and intellectual context to historical view and to make visible again this conrnon chapter in the lives of those who nade them possible. There was moïe than rhetorical truth iir Heaton's closing remarks in the Third Annual Report of the Workerst Educational Association of Australia fot Ig22:

Above all we have found that in our midst is an active ninority of people to whom our ideals and methods have appealed, and we can clairn to have done our bit - maybe a big bit - in shaping the^mind and broadening the out- look of this young nation.9

7_rbid., PP. 66-67. Efbid., p. 2SS . 9H. tleatón and s.D. Thompson, 'rrhird Annual Report of the workersf Educational Association of Australia, lg22t1, AustnaLían HigLntay, October 1, 1923 p. 752. 325.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

A. MANUSCRIPTS

(i) Private Papers

Barrett, James W. Papers. lntelbourne University Archives.

BIand, Francis A. Papers. Sydney University Archives. Papers. Department of Adult Education, University of Sydney.

Brigden, James B. Papers. National Library of Australia, MS. 730.

Condliffe, John B Papers. Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley.

Copland, Douglas B. Papers. National Library of Australia, MS. 5800.

Eggl eston, Frederic l{. Papers. National Library of Aust'ralia, MS. 423. Fraser, Colin. Papers in Broken Hill Associated Snelters Records. Melbourne University Archives. Heaton, Herbert. Papers. University of lt4innesota Archives. Higgins, Henry Bournes. Papers. National Library of Australia, I'lS. 1057.

Mayo Family. Papers. South Australian Archives, State Library, P.R.G. I27. Mayo, G. Elton. Papers. Baker Library, Harvard University.

Moore, W. Harrison. Papers. lrlelbourne University Archives.

Portus, Garnet V. Papers. South Australian Archives, State Library, P.R.G , 204.

Taylor, T. Griffith Papers . National Library of Australia, ItfS . 1003.

Wa1las, Grahan. Papers. London School of Economics.

Zimmern, Alfred. Letters. National Library of Australia, MS. 373L Papers. Bodleian Library, Oxford. s26.

(ii) Institutional

Advisory Council of Science and Industry. Minutes, 1918-20. University of Adelaide, - Minutes of the Board of Cornmercial Studies, 1902-1929. - Minutes of the Council, lgl2-lg2g.

- Minutes of the Joint Connittee for Tutorial Classes, l9I4-I929 . - Central Files (Dockets), 1914-1929 University of Metbourne, - Minutes of the Council, I9I2-Ig2g. - Minutes of the Joint Comnittee for Tutorial Classes, 1918-1929. - Minutes of the Professorial Board, 1914-1930. - Central Registry Files 1914-1930.

University of Sydney, - Minutes of the Joint Comnittee for Tutorial Classes , L9L4-L929. - Minutes of the Senate, 1914-Lgzg. lVorkerst Educational Association. Miscellaneous Papers. Departrnent of Adult Education, University of Sydney.

(iii) Other

Harper, N.D Lecture Notebooks, Sociology Course, University of Melbourne , 1925.

Alexander, F Letter to Author, 30 June 1976,

Urwick, L. Letter to Author, 31 October 1975.

Crocker, l\¡. Interview with Author, 10 April L976.

Duncan, W.G. K Interview with Author, 11 August 1976. 327 .

B. OFIIICIAI, PTIBLICATIONS

Commonwealth of Australia. Repont of Confenenee of Representatiues of the ElnpLoyez,s and ElnpLoyees fndustz,í,al )r,ganizations Conuened by the Príme Minister, Mr W.M. Hughes. (Sydney, 1922).

South Austz,aLian ParLiamentary Debates, 1925. University of Adelaide,

- Calendars, 1914- 1950 . - Examination Papers, 1914-1930. University of Metbourne,

- Calendars, 19 14- 19 30 . - Annual Reports of the lvlelbourne University Extension Board, 1908- 1929 .

University of Sydney, - Annual Report of the Sydney University Extension Board, 1914- 1916. - Workersr Educational Association of N.S.W. Annual Reports, 1915-1929.

C. NEIVSPAPER.S, PERIODICALS and JOURNALS

(i-) Newspapers

The fo11owíng were consulted for relevant periods and dates between l9I2 and 1929.

Adu ev'tis er. (Ade laide)

Az,gus (lt{elbourne)

By'isbane Cow.íer (Brisbane)

Daily TeLegz.aph (Sydney) HeraLd (l"lelbourne) Hobart DaiLy Posl (Hobart)

Meretmg (Hobart)

Neus (Adelaide) South Austz.alian Register (Adelaide)

South AustraLian Worker, (Adelaide)

Sgdney Mornínq Herald (sydney) 328.

(ii) Periodicals and Journals

AustraLasian Assoeiatíon for the Aduaneement of Science. Proceedings, 1907- L925 .

AustxaLasian Joutv,naL of PsgehoLogg and PhiLosophy, L923-1933.

Austv,aLian HigLu'tag, 1919- 1970 .

Both Sides, Journal of the Melbourne University Public Questions Society, 1920.

Chemícal Engineez,íng and Miníng Reuieu, 1918-1925.

Co-operatíue Neus (Australia) L92I-1923.

Eeornmie Reeord, 1925-1970 .

FeLLouship, (Melbourne) 1914-1922.

HigLu'tay, I9I2- 1930 .

IndustriaL AustraLian and Mining Standard, 1918-1925.

Neu )utLook, (Sydney) 1922-1923.

Pz,inting Trades JounrnL, l9l7 -1925.

RounÃ. TabLe, 1912-1930.

Steadts Reuieu, 1918-1930.

D UNPUBLISHED WORKS

(i) Theses

Dunt, L John Deuey and the Australian Edueators 1890-L940, 1,1.4. thesis, University of Melbourne , 1974 ,

Jones, H The Hi,stov'A of ContnerciaL Edueation i,n South AustnaLia, M.A. thesis, University of Adelaide, 1967.

l{esson, A Formal AduLt Education in Viatoria 1850-1950, M.Ed. thesis, University of l4elbourne, I971. Willians, 8., The Found.ation of AduLt Education in AustraLia 1886-79L6, B.A. Hons. thesis, tlniversity of Adelaide, 1966.

(ii) Papers

Osmond, W., rrAustralianism and the Sociologist'r. Paper read to SAANZ Conference, 19 August I972. 329.

E. CONTEIUPORARY B00KS, PAMPHLETS and ARTICLES These works are Australian, or concern Australia or are directly relevant to the thesis. No attenpt has been made to list the contemp- orary British, European or American works which make up the intellectual background.

Anderson, Francis, ttSociology in Australia: a Plea for its Teachiîg", 1912. Reprinted in Social Horizons, July 1943, pp . 16-20.

Anon., rtThe Return of Mr. Hughes", Round TabLe, Vol. 10, Decenber 1919, pp. 179-185. Anon., rrAdult Education in Australiarr, htorLd Assoeíatíon fon AduLt Education BulLetin, no. 20, May 1924, pp. L7-27. Atkínson, Meredith. Books - (ed.), IYade Unionism in Austy,alia (Sydney, 1915). - The Neu SociaL )z'der. (Sydney, 1919). - (ed.), Australia. Economic and polLticaL Studíes (London, r920) Panp hlets and Articles - ftDemocracy and Efficiency" in NatíonaL Efficiency, a series of lectures at the Victorian Railways Institute (lr4elbourne, 1915), pp. 2I-34 . - I'Relation of Trade Unionism to Co-operation and Co-partnershipt' in M. Atkinson, Trade Uníonism in Australía, pp. 18-26. - Capital and Labotu, - Co-operation oy, CLass War? (Melbourne, 191S). - IndtLstriaL Democracy in State Enterprises (Melbourne, lgIB). -'rThe lt{achinery of the League of Nations'1 and t'The International Spirit" in H. Heaton (ed.), The League of Natíons (Adelaide, 1918) pp. I7-29. - "Ethics and Businessrl, Industrial AustraLian anã Míning Standatd, 25 ,Iuly 1918, p . I28 . - rtThe Economics of Conmerce" in Mid-Dau ContnenciaL Leetuyes (Melbourne, 19f9) pp. 18-23. - "Leading Principles of Protection" in Ambrose Pratt (ed.), Austu,aLian Taríff Hanfuook (Melbourne, 1919) pp. 17-2I. - "The League of Natiol'tstt, AustnaLian Hig\u'tay, Vol. 1, no. 1, March 1919, p. 8 and Vo1. 1, no.2, April 1919, pp. 9-10. - Co-opera.tion and Social Reconstruetion (Sydney, 1920). - "Criticisms and Counter-criticisms" in W. Enmett, Kaz,L Mar,æ's Economics and Professot Atkinson (Sydney, f920) . - I'The Australian Outlook" in M. Atkinson (ed.), AustraLia. Economic and PoLiticaL Studies, pp. I-56. - ftThe Washington Conferencet', Nineteenth Century, Vol. 90, July- December 1921, pp. 941-949. 330

- rtNationalisnrs Bankruptcy", Steadts Reuieu, 11 November 1922, pp. 23-24. - "Russian l.'lemories", Steadts Reuiea, 14 October 1922, p. 31 and 28 Octobet 1922, p.26. - I'Soviet Russia and the Famine'r, Nineteenth Centut'y, Vo1. 91, January-June 1922, pp. 603-612. - t?With the Kemalists in Moscowrr, Steadts Reu'Leu, 30 Septernber 1922, p. 32. - "Empire or Commonwealth?t', Steadts Reuíeu, 22 lvlarch 1922, PP. 28-29. - "The Rising Tide of Labour'r, Steadts Relieu, 3 May 1924, pp.23-24- - ffAustralian Lessons for Briti-sh Labourrr, Nineteenth Centurg, Vo1. 98, July-December 1915, pp. 178-187. Barrett, J.W., The h¡in Ideals. An Educated Contnoyu¡eaLth. 2 vols. (London, 1918).

Bland, Francis Armand. Books - Shadous and ReaLities of Gouernment. An introduetion to the study of the organisation of the adninistratíue agencies of Gouer.nment uíth speeiaL reference to Neu South klaLes (Sydney, rs23). Arti c 1es - rrftn Australi,anrs Impressions of the W.E.A. in Britaintr, Hiahuay, Vol. X, no. 9, October 19L7, pp. 4-6. - "The Modern Industriat Outlook" (parts I and 2), fuintíng Trades JournaL, April 1918, pp. 80-81 and I'lay 1918, pp. 105-106. - "Figutes, Fallacies and Finance", a series of articles, under pseudonym 'rB.M.A.tt, AlrstTaLian HigLulay, Vol. 1, May to Septenber 1919. - lrEconomy or Efficiency" (parts I and II), Neu )utLook, 26 JuIy 1922, pp. I7I-I72 and 9 August 1922, pp. 194-196. -rrThe New State Agitationtt, Net; )utLook' 23 June 1923, pp.253-256, - "Commerce and Industry" in J. Co1we11 (ed.), The Stoz'y of Aust- v.aLía (Sydney 1925),pp. 159-235. - "Land and lVater Problens't in J. Colwell (ed') op. cit., pp. 237- 300 . -"Political Education and Citizenshiptt, AustraLiott Highuag, YoI. X, no. 3, December 1927, pp. 37-38. - Review of L.D. l{hite, An Intro&'¿ction to the Study of PlbLic Adninístz,ation, Austz,aLasian Jouynnl of PsychoLogg and phiLosophy' VoI. 5, 1927 , pp. 150- 154. - I'City Government by Comnission: an historical account of the first experiment in the government of Sydney by a conmission 1854-57'?, RoyaL AustraLian HistoricaL Soeiety JournaL and Proceedings, Vo1. XIV, 1928, pp. Il7-200. 33t.

ftDcvelopnent - ancl Migration" in p. campbell, Iì.c. Mi Ils ancl c.v. Portus (eds.), sturlies in Austv'aLian Affains (lr,telbourne 192g), pp. 49-77. r?unification - o_r self-government?', AustraLasian Joutrnl of PsychoLogy and Philosophy, Vo1. 6, 1928, pp. 111-f19. - "city Government and Greater sydney", Austz,alasian JourrnL of PsychoLogy and PhíLosophy, Vot. 7, t929, pp. 204-2II. ftPublic - and Private Enterprise', AustraL¿an Highuag, VoI.¡ 11, August 1929, pp. 183-185.' - "The Administration of Government Enterprisest, Economic Recoyd., Vol . V, \\ay 1929, pp. I-20 . rfliberty - and Discipline', Austz.aLasian Jouy,rnl of psyeho\ogg and. Philosophy, Vol. 8, 1950, pp. 2OO-204. Typ::grip t lectures etc. in Bland papers - I'Trade llnionismrr, February 1glS, pp. 1-9. - rÌTrade tjnionism and Efficiency. A consideration of the paper read by Professor Irvine to the Educational Conferencen, lb15, pp. r-7 . rrClass - Consciousness. An address delivered at the Cathedral'r, September 1919, pp. t-16. - f rlndustrial Unrest", fl.d., circa lg19. rrReview - of the 1920 Lambeth Confeïencerr, 1920. - trlndustry and Welfare Work?', September 1920, pp. l_13. rrAdult - Education Programmes ancl the comnunity", D.d., circa rg22, pp. r-2. - Local Government't, February 1922, pp. 1-6. t'The - Industrial Conference'r, 1922, pp. 1-S. rrUnemployment. - A Synod speech", n.d., circa 1922. - Printed -synopses of lectures in social Questions course for Tutorial Classes , 1922.

Brigden, .James B. (ed.), Employment ReLatíons and the Basie wage, pitt Cobbett Lectures. (Hobart, 1925) . - Souz,ces of )pinion. (flobart, 1927) " ffState - Enterprises in AustîaLiatt, fnterttntionaL Labour. Reuieu, Vol. 16, 1927, pp. 26-49.

Bryce, James, Modern Demoeracies. 2 vols. (London,1921). childe, v.G . , Hou) Labouv, GoDez.ns. (Lonclon,1923). Reprinted 1964. clark, Victor, The Laboun Mouement in Australasía. (New yorlç 1906). Condliffe, J.8., The Life of Society. (l,,te1bourne, I}ZS). cook, 8.s., rndustrial co-operation in AustraLia, Bulletin no. 17, ACSI. (Melbourne, 1920). 332.

Copland, Douglas Berry Books

- Monetary PoLicy ar¡d. its AppLication to Austz.alia. (Melbourne, Lg26) - studies in Eeornmies and. sociaL science. (Melbourne, lg27). - AustraLia in the worLd cz,isis lgzg-19s3. (cambridge, 1934). P lets and Articles rrLabor - and the Peace Conferencefr, under pseudonym 'rl,.p. Bodcandrr, Ausfu,aLian HigVn-oag, Vol. 1, No. 5, July tStS, pp. g_10. - The }rigins of BoLsheuism. (t.tobart , Ig2O). rrCurrency - Inflati.on and Price Movenents in Australiau, Eeonomic Journol, Vol. XXX, December 1920, pp. 4g4_509. - curnencg and prices in AustraLia. The Joseph Fisher Leetw,e in Conrnerce 19 21. (Adelaide , lg2l) . - '''The Trade Depression in Australia in Relation to Econonic Thoughtr, Repont of the Siæteenth Meeting of the Australasian AssoaLation foz'the Aduancement of seience, weLLíngton 1g23, Vol. xvl, pp. s55- s79. - 'fThe Economic Situation in Australia, 1918-2ítt, Economic Jouyrnl, Vol. XXXIV, March 1924, pp. 32-SS. t'Some Pioblens - of Taxation in Australiart, Ecornmic JounrnL, VoI . XXXIV, September 1924, pp. Sg7-597. ?tSome - Economic Aspects of Expenditure Upon Educationr, Australian Highuay, Vol. 6, no. 9, Novemb e-r 1924, pp. f g3_1g5. - "The Australian Incorne Taxr', euartenLy Jouz.naL of Economies, Vol . 39 , 1925, pp. 70-95 . - Contrnev'ce and Business. An fnauguraL Leetuz,e. (Melbourne, Ig2S). f rrhe - Place of Economics in Educationtt, Al,tstra.Lian Highuay, vol. 7, no. 8, October 1925, pp. 172_175. - "The Econornic society - Its origin and constitution, Economíc Reeord, Vo1. 1, November 1925, pp. l4O_I44. - An Economi-c su,zaea of Australia, essays in Armals of the Amey,ican Academy of PoL'LticaL and Social Scien'ce, Vo1. 158, November 1931. Eggleston, F,W., "The Australian Democracy and its Economic problemsrr, Ecoynmic Vo 1 Jouz,nnl, . 25 , Septernber 1915, pp . 547 _SSg . I'The - Effect of Industrial Legislation in Australia upon the Ideals and Aspirations of the workers, in M. Atkinson (ed.)-, T?ade Unionism in Australia. (Sydney, 1915), pp. 76_g7. rrAusttalian - Experiments in State Socialisnt', Edinbu:ngh Reuieu, Vo1. 250, no. 510, 1929, pp. 257_271. - State SociaLisn in Victoti.a. (London, Ig32).

Gunn, John Alexander, social progress. rrnuguy'aL Lectw,e. (lr{elbourne, re2s) . - The Appz'oach to Economi,c study. paper given to commonwealth Accountants Students Society. (Melbourne, Ig24). 333

- Li,uelihood, Papers in the Study of the Eeonomic Facton foz, Social Science Students. (Melbourne, Ig27).

Furniss, H. Sanderson, Review of J.A. Gunn, LiueLihood, Eeononíe Jotu,naL, Vo1. 37 , December 7927 , pp. 643-644. Halévy, E., ?rThe Policy of Social Peace in England?', tn The Et,a of Tgrannies. (New York, 1965), pp. 105-1S7. First published in 1919. - ?rThe Problem of lVorker Controlf ,, in íbid., pp. 1Sg-181. First published in 1921.

Hancock, w.K., AustraLia. (Brisbane, 1961). First published 19s0. Heaton, Herbert. Books - lleLfare Wotk. (Melbourne, 1919).

- The rorkshiv'e llooLLen and worsted rndustz,ies. (oxford, rg2o) . - Modev'n Economie History uíth speciaL Reference to AustraLia. issued circa 1918 in Adelaide as 37 panphlets, under the heading rrEconomics: FIistorical, Descriptive and Theoretical". - lulodern Ecornmic Hístor.y uith special Reference to AustraLia (Adelaide, r92r). second edition, 1922, Third revised edition, 1925.

l*ry| lg! : _etg_{r!i e ie: - rrrhe Early Tasmanian Press and Its struggle for Freedomr , Royal Soci,etg of Tasmania, Papet,s and Fyoceedings 1916. (Hobart, fSf Z¡ pp. L-27 .

- (ed.) A League of Nations, four lectures (Adelaide, 19lB) . - I'Australia and the German colonies", Athenaailn, no. 46s2, August 1918, pp. 340-342. Under pseudonyn'rAnglo-Australianr?. frAustralia - and the League of Nationstt, Austv,aLian Highuay, Vor. 1, no. 3, May 1919, pp. 10-ll. - "The Sorrows of the Non-Partisan?r, AustraLian Highuay, Vo1. 1, no. 9, Novenber 1919, pp. 7-B. Ulrder pseudonym ilKisnetr. - rfCo-operationrr, S.A. T'eacher.s, JournaL, April 1920, pp. I44-I45, -?tland Settlement and Legislationrrin M. Atkinson (ed.), AustnaLia. Economic and politícaL Studies, (London, I92O), pp. 3Sg-379. - trTraining Tutors and Politicianstt, Ausl;r,a.Lian HigLuag, Vol. l, no. 11, January 1920, pp. 6-8, - The Agents of Production and Theiz, Reüard, lecture to the Round Table Christian Sociological Society (Adelaide, I92I) . - I'The Basic Wage Principle in Australian Wages Regulationr', Economic JourrmL, Vol. 3I, September 1921, pp. S09-j19. - "The Economics of Environmentrt, Toun PLanning and LocaL Gouernment Jounnal, 24 Februaly 1922, p . S . 334

- r?Industry and Ilousing", T.P.L.G.J., 3l March 1923, p. 10. - f 'The Co-operative Commonwealthrr , lAínting Tz,ades JounnaL, 16 January 1923, pp. 4-5. Under pseudonym 'rAdarn Smith Jrr'. - "The Co-operation of Consumersrr, P.T.J., 15 February 1923, pp. 24- 25. 'rAdam Smith Jr". - "The Forty-Four Hour Weekrr, P.T.J., 13 March 1923, pp. 43-44. rrAdam Smith Jrr'. - "The Shorter Working $leek II", P.T.J., I0 April \923, pp. 64-65. rÌAdam Smith Jrtt. - "Self-Government in TndustTy", P.T.J,, 15 May 1923, Adam Smith Jrrr. - rrExperiments in Governrnent Control'r, P.T.J., 12 June, 1923, pp. 107-108. rrAdam Smith Jr". - ffPersonalities - 1913-l922tt, AustraLian Highuay, Vol. 5, no. 8, October 1923, pp. 160-f61. - "An Experiment in the Teaching of Economics and Kindred Subjects", Economic Journnl, Vol. 34, June 1924, pp. 219-226. - I'Co-operation in Australia'r, Iear Book of the Conmorn¡eaLth of AustraLia, No. I7, 1924, pp. 581-586. - "English Universities - Some Impressionstt, Au.stnaLían Highuay, Vol. 6, no. 7, Septernber 1924, pp. 152-153. - I'The Taxation of Unimproved Value of Land in Australiar', QuanterLy Jouyrml of Economies, Vol. 39, 1925, pp. 4f0-449. - "The Story of Australian Land Settlementtt, Eeonomic Recotd., Vo I . 1 , Novernb er 192 5, pp . 94 - 100 . - r'On Getting I-lomerr, AustraLian Highuay, Vo1. 7, no. 2, ApriI L925, pp. 38-39. - I'Progress and Problems in Australian Economicsrr, Ameriean Eeonomie Reuieu, Vol. 16, 1926, pp. 235-248. - Review of J.A. Gunn, LùueLíhood, Amez,íean Economic Reuieu, VoI. 17 , 1927 , p. 686. - "The Development of New Countries - Some Conparisonsrr, Mirmesota History, Vol. 10, 1929, pp. 3-25. - r?Teaching of Economic Histor¡. in Universities - (IV) Australiarr, Economic Historg Reuieu, Vol. 3, 1932, pp. 344-345. - "The Progress of Historical Studies in Australiatt, JournnL of Modenn Histoty, Vo1. XV, 1943, pp. 305-510.

Higgins, Henry Bournes, I'The Future of Industrial Tribunalsrt, Neu) )utLook, 19 ApriI 1922, pp. 8-9.

- A Neu Prouinee for Lan and O:rdez.. (London, 1922) . Holme, J.8., The Briti.sh Scheme fon SeLf-Govermment ín fndustr!.l; and fts Counterpart in N.S.W. 2 panphlets. (Sydney, 1919). 335.

Irvine, R.F., The Housing of l,,brkingmen in Euu,ope and Amev'íea. Govern- ment Printer. (SYdneY, 1913). - The place of the sociaL saiences in a Modexn uniuersitg. (Sydney, 1914). -rrTrade Unionism and Efficiency'l in M. Atkinson (ed.), Trad.e Unionísm in Austv'aLia (Syòney, 1915), pp. 3l-37. - 'fNational Organisation and National Efficiencyil in NatíonaL EffieLency, a series of lectures at the Victorian Railways Institute. (l',{elbourne, 1915), PP. 4-20. - llar Firnnce: Loarts, Paper Money and Taration. Joseph Fisher Lectuv'e ín Cornmev'ce L917. (Adelaide, 1917). - t'The Political Economy of the Mastersr', fndustt'íal AustTaLian and Míníng StandaTd, 27 Jtne 1918, pp. 25-27 and 11 July 1918, pp. s5-56. - "The Roots of Our Discontent?t Parts I-XI. Chemieal Engirteer'ì'ng and Míninq Reuieu, November I920-September 1921. - The Mídas DeLusion. (Adelaide, 1933) .

Lectut,es and. Lettez,s of E.l,/. cunníngton e&Lted bg het' ehiLdnen. (Christchurch, 19fB) .

Malinowski, B. , A Diary in the Strict Sense of the TevTn. (London , 1967) Mansbridge, Albert, uniUersity Tl,LtotiaL classes. (London, 1915). - An Aduentuy,e ín l^loy,king CLass Education Beíng the Story of the lloy,kez,sI EducationaL AssoeLation 1903-L9L5. (London, 1920). - The Kingdom of the Mind: Essays and Addyesses L903-L937. (London, 1944) ,

Mauldon, F.R.E., A Studg in Soeial Economics, The Hunter Riuer VaLLey, Neu South l,'/aLes. (li{elbourne, 1927) . - "Industrial Relationsr'. Review article on Henry CIay, The pyoblem of Industy,iaL neLations and )they, Lectures, Eeorømic Record, Vo1. 5, November 1929, pp. 299-305' - nCo-operation and Welfare in Inclustry", AnnnLs of the Amev"Lcan Academg of Political and sociaL science, Vol. 158, November, 1931, pp. I83-I92.

X Itlayo, George E lton . Þeg!: - Democv'acy and Fz'eedom. (Melbourne, 1919). - The Human Pv'obLems of an fndustriaL CiuiLisation. (New York, 1933). - The SociaL ProbLems of an IndustriaL CiuLLisation- (London, 1949). - Ihe Psychology of Pierz'e Janet (London, f952). !ery!ls!:-flq-4r!ie1e: - some consíd.et,ations Affecting )r,ganisation fon the Production of the lriunitíons of ï,/ar. (Brisbane, 1915) . Written for the Queensland War Conmittee. 336.

- fnrlul;Lria.7 orryctni.:trt.l;í.r¡n aru7 l;he I,ht.r'. (Brisbrrnc, lgtS). Wr:ittcn for thc Quecns l¿uld War Connittce. - I'The Australian Political Consciousness'r in M. Atkinson (ed.), Australia. Eeonomic and PoLíticaL Studies. (London, 1920), pp. I27-I44. - PsychoLogy and Religion. Second DougLas Price MemoriaL Lectwe. (ì,{e lbourne, I922) . - ?'Civilisation and lr4orale", Industy,iaL AustraLían and Mining Stand.ard, 5 January 1922, p. 16 . - f'Industrial Unrest and Nervous Breakdown", f.A.M.S., 12 Januaty 1922, pp. 63-64. - "The Mind of the Agitatorr', f.A.M.S., 19 January 1922, p. 111. - frThe Will of the People", f .A.M.S., 26 January 1922, pp. 159-160. - rrRevolutionrr , I.A.M.S., 9 Februa'ry 1922, p. 253. - "Civilised Unreasontt, Harperts Magazine, Vo1. 148, 1923, pp, 527- 535. - ttThe Irrational Factor in Human Behaviourtr, The AnnaLs of the American Aeademy of PoLitical and Social Seience, Vol. 108, 1923, pp. 117-130. - rtThe Great Stupidity", Harper's Magazirrc, Vot. 151, 1925, pp. 225- 233.

Irfelbourne, A.C.V.,'tProfit-sharing and Co-partnership't, fndustz,iaL AustraLian and ltlining Standnrd, 23 October 1919, p. 792.

I'fétin, A., Le SocíaLisme Sans Doctrines. (Paris, 1910) .

MiIls, R.C., rrSome Economic Factors in Industrial Relationstr, Eeonomic Record, Vo1. 5, May 1929, pp. 34-53.

Muscio, B., Lectuyes in fndustr.iaL PsychoLoqy. (Sydney, 1916) .

Mussen, G., The Humanizing of Commez,ce and IndtLstry. Joseph Fisher Lecture in Contmerce. (Adelaide, 1919) . NatiornL Effíciencg, a series of lectures at the Victorian Railways Institute, August-Septenber 1915, under the auspices of the Hon. F. Hagelthorn M.L.C., Minister of Public l{orks, Victoria. (Melbourne, 1915), National Industrial Conference Board, Arbitration and Wage-fiæing in AustraLia. Research Report no. 10, October 1918.

Northcott, C.l{., Austz.aLian Social DeueLopment. (New York,. I9I8). Pearson, C.FI., National Life and Cltaz.acter. (London, 1894).

PhiIlips, P.D. and Wo_od, G.L. (ecls.), The PeopLing of AustraLía, (Melbourne, 1928) 337 .

Portus, Garnet Vere. Books - caritas AngLicann. An Hístoy'ícaL rnquity ínto those Religious and phùLanthnopícaL SosLeties that FLourLshed in England beù¡een the Years 1678 and 1740. (London, 1912) . - lúarr, and lr4odern Thought. (lt{elbourne, 1921) . - The American Baekgnound.. (Melbourne, 1928) - with P. Campbell and R.C. Mills (eds'), StudLes in Austz'aLi'an Affairs (Melbourne, 1928) . - HappU Híghuags. (lvfelbourne, 1955) P lets and Articles - The CuLt of KuLtur, lecture to Newcastle Synod, May 1915. - SociaL Unitg and Labour'. (Sydney, 1918). - An Introduction to the Studg of fndustriaL Reeorætruction tlith SpeeLaL Refenenee to AustraLian Con&Lti'ons. (Sydney, 19f9). - The ProbLens of Industz'y in PoLitics. (Sydney, 1919). - tfNeo Marxism in Gerrnanyrr, under pseudonym I'P. Vurgosttr, AUStTALiøt Highuay, Vol. l, no. 1, lr{arch 1919, pp. 9-f0. -'fTrotsky and }!arx'r, under'rP, Vurgostìt, Austz'aLian Highuay, YoI . 1, no. 2, April 1919, pp. 6-9. - frMarx and the Class Wart', under P. Vurgost't, Austt'alian Highuay' Vo1. 1, no. 6, August 1919, pP. 6-8. - "The Labour lr'lovement in Australia (1788-1914)'r in lvt. Atkinson (ed.) , Aust;r'aLia. Economic and. PoLiticaL Studies. (London, 1920), pp . 145- 195. - "Ha1f a Loaf or Whole Bread?tt, Australiøt Highuag, Vol. 3, no. 3, It{ay 19 2I , pp. 1- 3 . - "The Peoplers Tasktt, AustnaLian HiçJhuay, VoI. 4, no' 4, June 1922, pp. s3-s4. - ttsome Diff:iculties of the Social Sciencestt, AttstnaLùan Jout'rtnL of PsychoLogy and PhiLosophg, Vo1. 5, 1927, pp. 29-35. - I'The Gold Discoveries, 1850-1860" in Cant¡v'idge Histon¿ of the Bz.itish Elnpire. (Cambridge, 1933), Vo1. VII, PP. 245-27I. - The W.E.A. anÅ the Uniuensitg. A Papez'readby Mr'. G.V. Portus, Directov, of TutorùaL CLasses, at a SpeeLaL Confarenee of the Workez.st EducationaL Assoeiation of N.S.l'/. (Sydney, 1928). - Connunism and Christianity. (Morpeth, 1931). - frBland and Adult Education. A Personal Memoi-r", PubLic A&ní,nis- tration, VII, no. 2, (new series) June 1948, PP. f35-140. - "The Highway is Born", AustraLian HLghuay, Vol. 33, no. 2, MaY 1952, PP. 18-20. 338.

Pratt, Ambrose, Australian Tariff Hanfuook. (Melbourne, 1919). Proud, E. Dorothea, tleLfare Work. Preface by D. Lloyd George. (London, 1916). Pulsford, F., Co-operation and Co-partnenshíp. (Sydney, 1913). Report of the Eíghty-Fow,th Meeting of the British Assoeiation for the Aduaneement of SaLence, Austz'aLia 1914. (London, 1915). Rivers, W.H.R., PsyehoLogy and nthnoLogA. (London, 1926). Russell, F.4., I'Industrial Arbitration in Relation to Socialismrr in M. Atkinson (ed.) , Trade uníonism in Austv'aLia- (Sydney, 1915) pp. 92-r05 - rf lndustrial Arbitration in N.S.W.t', Economic Jout'rta'L, YoI . 25, Septenber 1915, pp. 329-346.

Second Congress of the UníueTsities of the Ernpine L92L. Report of ProeeedLngs. (London, I92I) .

St. Ledger, A., Australían SoetaLism. (London, 1909) . Sutcliffe, J,T., A Histony of Tz,ade []níonísm in AustraLía. (Melbourne, r92r) . Víctor,ían Labout, CoLLege. SyLLabus and Constitution. (Melbourne, 1917). Voigt, E.R., rtFron Arbitration to Industrial Councilstt, AustraLian Highuay, YoI. 7, no. 12, February 1926, pp. 237-242.

The llhitLey Repoz't. Industrial Reports no, I. fndustriaL AustraLian and Ìulining Standand. (Melbourne, 1918) . l{ilson, J. Dover, t'Adult Education in Yorkshirer', Jout'rnL of AduLt Eútcatíon, Vol. llf, flo. 1, October 1928, pp. 47-55. 339.

F. SOME LATER BOOKS AND ARTICLES

Alexander, F., AduLt Education in AustraLia. (Melbourne, 1959). - "Sydney University and the W.E.A. 1913-l9l9rr, AustraLian Qttnrt- erLy, VoI. 27, December 1955, pp. 34-56.

An Aceount of the History of the uniuersity of Qu.eensLard. duu'íng its First 1\,tenty-fiue fears. PLtbLished bg the Authoníty of the Senate. (ls3s).

Barker, T.C., "The Beginnings of the Economic History Society", Economic History Reu'Leu, Vol. XXX, no. l, 1977 , pp . 1-19. Barraclough, F.E., rrProfessor Bland and the N.S.W. Public Service", Pttblíc Admínistratíon, VII, no. 2 (new series), June 1948, pp. 135-140 .

Barrett, J.W., Eighty EuentfuL Years. (Melbourne, 1945)

Bendix, R. and Fisher, L.H., 'rThe Perspectives of Elton Mayo'r , Reuieu of Economic Statistics, Vot. 31, November 1949, pp. 312-321.

Biaggini, E.G Iou Cantt Say That! (Adelaide, 1970). Black, H.D., trFrancis Armand Bland", AustraLian Jout'naL of AduLt Education, Vol. 111, to. 1, July 1967, pp. 38-40. Blainey, G" (ed.), ff I Remenbez'RíghtLy - Memoíz's of W.S. Robinson 1876-1963. (Melbourne, 1967). Bo1len, J.D., FYotestantism and SociaL Reforrn in Neu South WaLes 1890- 1-9L0. (lvfelbourne, L972) .

Boyer, R.F., 'rG.V. Portus - the Passing of an Australian Liberalrr, AustraLian QuanterLu, Vol. 26, 1954, pp. 7-lI. Briggs, Asa, SocíaL Thought and SociaL Action: A Study of the l^lork of Seebohm Rountree 1871-1954. (London, f961) . Burton, ll ,, 'rSir Douglas Copland and the Melbourne Commerce Schoolr', Eeonomie RecoYd-, Vol. 36, 1960, pp. I39-142. Butlin, S.J., rrc.V. Portusrr, Economic Recoz,d, Vol. 30, 1954, pp. 276- 278. Butlin, S.J., Introduction to J. Craig, BibLiographa of the Wnitings of F.A. BLand, PubLtc Adninistration, VII, June 1948, pp. 91-92.

Casson, l.{., G.C. Henderson. A Memoiv,. (Adelaide, 1974) . Child, J., British Management Thought. (London, 1969). Co11ini, S., 'rsociology and Idealism in Britain 1880-1920?r , Ettt'opean JouwnaL of Sociology, Vol. XIX, no. 1, 1978, pp. 3-50. 340.

Condliffe, J.8., trTraining of an Economistr?, EcononrLc Record, VoI . 36, 1960, pp. 124-130 . Craig, J., "Bibliography of the tìlritings of F.A. Bland" , Publie Adní,n- ísty,ation, VII, June 1948, pp. 93-120.

Crawford, R.M., tA Bít of a RebeLt The t,ife and Woy.k of George Az,røLd Llood. (Sydney, 1975).

Crew, V., BibL¿ography, of AustnaLian Adult Edueation L935-65. (Canbema, 1968). I'The - Beginnings of the lV.E.A. in Queenslandrf , AustraLian JournaL of AduLt Education, Vo1. fX, no. 2, JuIy 1969, pp. 72-83.

Cunningham, K.5., Social Scienee Reseay,ch in AustnaLia. (lrlelbourne, 1945). - The SoaiaL Science Research CounciL of Ausfu,aLia 1942-L952. (Melbourne, 1966).

Currie, G. and Grahan, J. , The 1nigins of the C.5.I.R.0. Scienee and the CommonueaLth Gouemment 1901-26. (Melbourne, 1966).

Davis, S.R. and Hughes, C.4., "The Litetature of Australian Governnent and Politicstr, AustraL'Lan JournaL of PoLitics and Historn¿, Vol. IV, no. 1, August 1958, pp. 107-133. Drummond, D.H., t?From Lecturer to Statesmanrr (F.A. Bland) , Publíe Administv,ation, VII, June 1948, pp. I4I-I43.

Duncan, W.G.K., '?G.V. Portus 1883-1954t', Hístoz,ieaL Studies, VoI. 6, no. 24, May 1955, p. 474. - and Leonard R., The Uniuersity of AdeLaide L874-1974. (Ade1aide, rs73) . Encel, S.,?tThe Concept of the State in Australian Politicstr, AustraLiøL JourrnL of PoLities and Histoz,y, Vo1. VI, no. 1, 1960, pp. 62-76. Fisher, Donald, "Anerican Philanthropy and the Social Sciences in Britain, 1919-1939; the Reproduction of a Conservative Ideology'r, SociologicaL Reuieu, Vol. 28, no. 2, May 1980, pp. 277-375.

Fitzhardinge, L.F., 'tW.M. Hughes and the Treaty of Versai11es", JournaL of Conrnom,teaLth PoLiticaL Studíes, YoI. V, 1967, pp. L30-142.

Goodwin, Craufurd, D. I\I Econpmic Enquiry in AustnaLia. (Durham, 1966) IJaber, S. , Effiaiencg and Uplift: Seientific Møtagement in the Prog- y,essiue Ev,a 1890-1920. (Chicago , 1964) .

Hancock, W.K. , Countr.y and. CaLLing. (London, 1954) . Harrison, J.F.C., A Histoz,y of the Woz,king Ments CoLLege 1854-1954. (London, 1954). - Leaz,ning and Liulng 1790-1960: A Study in the History of the AduLt Education Mouement. (London, 1963). 34r l{arte, N.B. (cd.) , The StuÅy of Econowic Histoz,y. (London, 197l)

Higgins, E.M. , Dauid Steuart øtd the W.E.A. (Sydney, n.d. circa r9sB) . ItF.A. Hearnshaw , E. , Bland and Potitics't, Pub Li c Adtn|ní s tz. ation, VII, June 1948, pp. 155-161.

Flodgart, 4., The Faculty of Economíes and Contmez,ee. A Histor.y L925-19Z5. (lt{elbourne, n. d. circa, 1975).

Jones, P. d'a., The Chz,istian SociaList ReuiuaL lBZZ-j.914. Princeton, re68).

Ke11y, T., A History of AduLt Education in Great Britaì.n from the MiddLe Ages to the Tl¡entíeth Century. (Liverpool, f970).

Kyle, w.M., r?George Elton Mayorr , uniuersíty of Queensland Gazette, no. 15, December 1949, pp. 2-4.

La Nauze, J.4., PoLiticaL Eeornmy in Austz.aLia. (Melbourne, 1949) . Leathley, L.T., 'trhe Beginnings of the IrJ.E.A. in victoria,, AustraLíøt Journnl of AduLt Education, Vo1. III, ilo. l, July 1965, pp. 52-57. Mansbridg€, A. , The TrodÅen Path. (London, 1940). It{auldon, F.R.E. and wel1er, G., rrsir Douglas copland and the Foundations of the Economics Societyrr, Eeonomíe Reeond, Vo1. 56,1960, pp. l4S- 146.

McFarlane, 8.F., Pt,ofessor rruinets Economics in AustraLian Laþour Histotg 1913-79 33. (Canberra, 1966) . Mil1s, R.c., rrBland and the universityn, putbltc Administv,ation, vIr, June 1948, pp. 129-133. I'lvorkersr Molesworth, B.M. , Education in Queensland 19l3 T.o r9s7, , AustraLLan JoutnaL of AduLt Education, Vol. VIII, no. 2, JuIy 196g, pp. 59-64. Parker, R.s., rtF.A. Blandrs contribution to public Administrationr, PubLi.c Adninistration, VII, June 1948, pp. 165-182.

Parsloe, N., EueLine WiLLel;t Curmtíngton and the Onigins of the Canterbury W.E.A. (Wel1ington, 1971) .

Prest, l{., "Teaching Economics in Australian Universitiesrr, EcononrLe Record, YoI. 36, 1960, pp. 1Sl-158.

Radford, P., A schoLar in a Neu Land: Leuis Bostock Radfotd. (Adel* aide, 1979).

Reeves, c.M., I'Professor Bland and Local Government,, p?,tbLic Adnin- istration, VII, June 1948, pp. 163-164. Roe, Michael , WiLLi,am Jethro By,oun. (Hobart, Ig77). 342.

Roethlisberger, F. and Dickson, W.J., Management and. the Worken, (Cambridge, Mass. 1939) .

Rowse, Tim, AustraLian Liberalism and Nationa.L Charaetev, (Melbourne, 1978). Scott, Ernest, A HistorA of the tlníuez.sity of MeLbow,ne. (Melbourne, le36). Searle, G.R., The Quest fon NatíonaL EffiaLencA. (Oxford, 1971).

Serle, G., Fv,om Deserts The Prophets Come. The Creatiue Spi,rit in AustraLia L7BB-L972. (lvfelbourne, 1973) .

Snith, J.H. (ed.), Introduction to E. Mayo, The SociaL ProbLems of an fndustz,iaL CiuiLisatíon. (London, 1975) . Stocks, M., The Workerst Educational Associatíon: The Fiv,st Fifty Ieans. (London, 1953).

Swart z, M. , The Union of Democratíc Contz,oL ì,n British PoLities DrrLng the First hlov,Ld War. (Oxford, 1971).

Taylor, A.J.P., The TroubLemakers. (London, 1957)

Taylor, T. Griffith, Journegman TayLor: The Education of a Seientist. (London, 1958).

Thomas , .1 ., The Institul;e for Pacifíe ReLations, Asian SchoLans and Americrm PoLitics. (Seattle, 1974) .

Urwick, L., "The Life and Work of Elton Mayorr, Paper delivered to XII International Management Congress, l'{elbourne, 29 February 1960. Walker, D., Dreøn and DisíLLusion. [Canberra, 1976). Walker, trV.G., I'Sydney University and the W.E.A. - a Reassessmenl Austr.aLian QuarterLy, Vol. 28, September 1956, pp. 93-104. Whitelock, D., 'Ihe Gv,eat Trad.ition. A History of AduLt Edueation in AustraLia. (St. Lucia, 1974) . Wilson, Lascelles, t?B.H. Molesworth - a Tributetr, AustraLian Journal of AduLt Education, Vol. XI, no. 3, Novernber 1971, pp. 151-152.

lVinter, J.M., SocíaLism ond the ChaLLenge of War'. (London, 1974). Zubrzycki, J. (ed.), The Teaching of SocioLogy ín AustraLia ØIdNeü ZeaLanÅ.. (Melbourne, 1970) .